English law
Common law is a term with historical origins in the legal system of England. It denotes, in the first place, the judge-made law that developed from the early Middle Ages as described in a work published at the end of the 19th century, "The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I", in which Pollock and Maitland expanded the work of Coke (17th century) and Blackstone (18th century). Specifically, the law developed in England's Court of Common Pleas and other common law courts, which became also the law of the colonies settled initially under the crown of England or, later, of the United Kingdom, in North America and elsewhere; and this law as further developed after those courts in England were reorganised by the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts passed in the 1870s, and developed independently, in the legal systems of the United States and other jurisdictions, after their independence from the United Kingdom, before and after the 1870s. The term is used, in the second place, to denote the law developed by those courts, in the same periods (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial), as distinct from within the jurisdiction, or former jurisdiction, of other courts in England: the Court of Chancery, the ecclesiastical courts, and the Admiralty court.
Court of Common Pleas (England)
During the 15th century, the common law courts were challenged by the civil law and equity found in the Chancery and similar courts. These courts and legal methods were much faster than the common law courts, so lawyers and claimants flocked to them. This was perceived as a threat to the common law courts, for good reason; between 1460 and 1540, the business of the common law courts significantly dropped, while the Chancery's cases rose massively in number. In reaction to this, the Court of King's Bench developed its own, faster system, intent on winning cases back, and through procedures such as the Writ of Quominus and Bill of Middlesex acquired a wider jurisdiction. While this succeeded in forming an equilibrium between the old common law courts and the new courts, it was viewed with suspicion by the Common Pleas, who became highly reactionary to the changes the King's Bench attempted to introduce. When the King's Bench attempted to use the Bill of Middlesex to widen its jurisdiction, the Common Pleas became increasingly conservative in its attempts to avoid ceding cases. This was limited by the fact that the three Common Pleas prothonotaries could not agree on how to cut costs, leaving the court both expensive and of limited malleability while the King's Bench became faster, cheaper and more varied in its jurisdiction.