(383) or relating to lands and tenements.* Things real. 1 Steph. Com. 156. (384) contracting parties may draw back from the contract. Fleta, lib. 2, c. 58, § 3. To retire or be dismissed from court. Quietus recedet; shall go quit. Fleta, lib. 1, c. 21, § 7. Recedunt sine die; go without day. Id. lib. 2, c. 39, § 1. Recedet inde reus quietus imperpetuum; the defendant shall go quit thereof forever. Id. c. 63, § 12. Receditur a placitis juris, potius quam injuriæ et delicta maneant impunita. Positive rules of law (as distinguished from maxims or conclusions of reason,) will be receded from, [given up or dispensed with] rather than crimes and wrongs should remain unpunished. Bacon's Max. 55, reg. 12. See Placita juris. (385) Receptor denariorum; receiver of moneys. Id. lib. 2, c. 70, §§ 7, 9. Receptrix. A female receiver. Yearb. M. 19 Hen. VI. 10. (386) (387) the only strict and proper proof of the proceedings of the court in which they are preserved, they are also regarded as proof of so transcendant and absolute a nature, as to admit of no contradiction, or, in Lord Coke's language, they "import in themselves such incontrollable credit and verity, as they admit no averment, plea or proof to the contrary." Co. Litt. 260 a. 3 Steph. Com. 583. See 25 Alabama R. 116. And the peculiar privilege of some courts to have these memorials has, of itself, created the great leading distinction, equally recognized in English and American law, between courts of record and courts not of record. 3 Bl. Com. 24. The practice of recording (thus peculiar to the common law,) has been very satisfactorily shown by Mr. Serjeant Stephen to be essentially of Norman origin. Steph. Pl. Appendix, Note (11.) The term record, is itself, as he observes, in its immediate derivation, French; or rather, it is a French word adopted in English without change, as will appear from the use of it in Britton. Et en tiel cas volons que lour roules porten record; and in such case we will that their rolls shall bear or carry record, that is, shall have the force of record. Britt. c. 1. Enroulment de court que porte record; enrollment of a court which bears record, that is, of a court of record. Id. c. 28. Record is from recorder; and the latter word anciently signified, in the Norman law, to recite or testify on recollection, as occasion might require, what had previously passed in court, which was the duty of the judges and other principal persons who presided at the placitum, -thence called recordeurs. Steph. Pl. Appendix, Note (11.) In fact, all over France, at this early period, the only mode of proving what took place in the courts, seems to have been by the testimony of witnesses, by whom, as Montesquieu observes, they proved what had been already done, said, or judicially decreed, (on prouvoit par temoins ce qui s'étoit déja passé, dit, ou ordonné en justinctly mentioned in the Assises de Jerusalem,) drawn up by the Francic pleader to confirm the recollection of his judges, and which, by a gradual progress, (not now to be traced,) took the shape of an official contemporaneous minute of the proceedings; and, no longer merely subordinate to a record or judicial report, became itself invested with that name and character. "Whether this change," observes Mr. Stephen, "had fully taken place at the date of Glanville's treatise, (in the reign of Henry II.) that work does not enable us accurately to decide. However, we find at least very shortly after this period, the practice of recording, in the present sense of the term, was in full operation." The series of records, now extant, begins with the reign of Richard I. and the earliest of them are to be found in the collection called Placitorum Abbreviatio. Steph. Pl. Appendix, Note (11.) Bracton frequently refers to the irrotulationes (enrollments,) as important parts of the proceedings in an action, and occasionally gives forms of them. Bract. fol. 16, 292, 299 b. The same author, in citing the judicial decisions of that period, distinctly mentions the rotuli or rolls on which they were recorded, sometimes distinguishing in what part of the roll the case was to be found. angier It may not be out of place to advert here, briefly, to the principal features of this very important judicial instrument. The ancient record was, as its form clearly indicates, a contemporaneous minute of the proceedings in an action, drawn up by an officer of the court, containing an entry of every act done in court, either by the parties or by the court itself, which, (as every thing done in an action was then done in open court,) embraced all the proceedings in the suit, -the appearances and pleadings of the parties, prayer and allowance of imparlance, prayer and allowance of oyer, award of jury process, proceedings at the trial, verdict of the jury and judgment of the court, with the various intermediate and incidental proceedings. Its contemporanetice.) This was what they called the pro-ous character appears every where on its ceeding by record, (par ce que s'appelloit la procedure par record.) Esprit des Loix, liv. 28, c. 34. The same thing conclusively appears from the Assises de Jerusalem, referred to by Mr. Stephen. The proper original of the English record is considered by the last named author to have been an occasional memorandum (disface, the proceedings being uniformly entered in language of the present tense, and as of present occurrence. The plaintiff "complains" and "brings suit;" the defendant "comes and defends," and "prays judgment;" the "jury come" and "say upon their oath;" and the judgment o the court is, that "it is considered," &c (388) day. One was the circumstance of its being kept in Latin, a language admitting of no variation, and the other, the character of inviolability, which preserved it from the slightest degree of alteration after it had been once made up. Another distinctive feature of the old record was its continuances, or the entries of the adjournments of the court from one day or term to another, by which the parties were temporarily dismissed and appointed to appear again, and by which its various parts were at the same time most effectually connected together. It was this peculiar principle of construction, by which the record was made to follow the action step by step, and to reflect every proceeding in it just as it occurred, which gave it from an early period the stamp of the very highest authority as a judicial memorial. Kept constantly under the eye of the court, and by its own officer, it necessarily became the evidence in itself, of what it contained, admitting, indeed, of no extrinsic proof whatever. The great and obvious importance of the record in this particular, led to a corresponding degree of care in framing it. By the consummate skill of the AngloNorman pleaders, its language was gradually elaborated to the highest degree of precision and uniformity, its various parts studiously adapted to each other and logically fitted together, until, by the force of constant repetition, and under the sanction of the courts for a succession of centuries, the whole instrument settled at last into a fixed form of expression, which admitted of (as it required) no variation. In this way, the record came to be, at an early period, and before the discontinuance of oral pleadings, next after the original writ, the most important document in an action, prescribing indeed the form of all the other proceedings, which constituted its component parts. This is very forcibly shown in the fact that, when written pleadings were introduced, they were framed precisely as they had before appeared on the record, and were virtually mere extracts from it. Steph. Pl. 35, (Am. ed. 1824.) Hence arose what has always been a leading principle of practice, In some of the United States, similar that every proceeding in an action intended or required to appear on the record, must be framed in the language of the record, and with reference to its place on that instrument, or, in other words, must be framed with the same exactness as the record itself. Sce Anthon's Law Student, 266, 267, 273. The substitution of English for Latin as the language of the record, and of ordinary writing for the "ancient and immutable court hand," which took place in the reign of George II. were innovations upon the ancient system apparently demanded by the times, but viewed by highly competent judges of the period with much apprehension as to their effect upon the durability of the record, as a memorial of the proceedings in an action. See Court hand. How far these apprehensions have been realized in the particular way anticipated, is for English practitioners to determine; but that they have been realized in the general result of impairing the character of the record by reducing it to the level of an ordinary instrument, privileged in no peculiar manner from change, seems apparent in the material alterations which have at length been effected, in England, in the structure of this once inviolable and immutable memorial of judgment. These changes consist principally in omitting all or most of those entries by which the several parts of the record were formerly connected together, (including the entire system of continuances,) by omitting the formal commencements and conclusions of pleadings, which were in fact portions of the record itself, connecting with the pleadings, and by the general modification of the language of the pleadings themselves. In this way the unity of the record has been effectually broken up, and the symmetry of its parts and the uniformity of its language, once thought to constitute its peculiar value, have been obviously impaired. modifications of the form of the record have been adopted, going in some instances indeed to much greater lengths; and, or the whole, the modern tendency undoubtedly is to place this instrument, in point of dignity and importance, far below the position it once occupied. Latterly, however, the courts have evinced a determination to maintain the record in its proper formal character. See 11 Howard's R. 272, 288. 2 Wallace, Jr. 569. 1 Hempstead's R. 214. 3 Wisconsin R. 362. Two circumstances, in addition to what has been mentioned, contributed to stamp the record with that character of immutability which has accompanied it down to modern times, and almost to the present RECORD, Debt of. A debt which ap- (389) pears to be due by the evidence of a court pendix, Note (11.) In the Assises de of record; such as a judgment, a recogniJerusalem, it is one of the directions given zance, &c. 2 Bl. Com. 465. RECORD, Trial by. In practice. A mode of trial in use where a matter of record is pleaded in any action, as a judgment, and the opposite party pleads nul tiel record, that there is no such matter of record existing. The issue arising hereon is tried merely by the record itself, that is, by the inspection of the court, without witnesses or jury; and accordingly upon such issue, the record alleged is ordered to be brought into court, that it may be seen and inspected.* 3 Bl. Com. 331. 3 Steph. Com. 583, 584. A record must be tried by itself, and importing verity, if a party desires to controvert it, the record alone must be relied upon for that purpose, by the introduction of a more perfect record. 28 Mississippi R. 398. (390) part of the deceased's goods to satisfy his own debt. Id. ibid. 3 Campb. 282. This old word has been revived to a considerable extent in modern law. "Where a man brings an action for breach of a contract between him and the defendant, and the latter can show that some stipulation in the same contract was made by the plaintiff, which he has violated, the defendant may, if he choose, instead of suing in his turn, recoupe his damages, arising from the breach committed by the plaintiff, whether they be liquidated or not. The law will cut off so much of the plaintiff's claim as the cross damages may come to." Cowen, J. 22 Wendell's R. 156. See Recoupment. (391) fendant of equal guilt on the part of the complainant in a suit for a divorce, on the ground of adultery. Shelf. Marr. & Div. 440. RECTARE, Rettare, Retare. L. Lat. In old English law. To accuse; to charge. See Arrectare.