fictiones

Updated: May 20, 2025

The object of these "fictiones" was, of course, to give jurisdiction, and they therefore strongly resembled the allegations in the writs of the English Queen's Bench, and Exchequer, by which those Courts contrived to usurp the jurisdiction of the Common Pleas: the allegation that the defendant was in custody of the king's marshal, or that the plaintiff was the king's debtor, and could not pay his debt by reason of the defendant's default.

Sir Henry Sumner Maine - Ancient Law: Its Connection to the History of Early Society

I employ the word "fiction" in a sense considerably wider than that in which English lawyers are accustomed to use it, and with a meaning much more extensive than that which belonged to the Roman "fictiones."

Sir Henry Sumner Maine - Ancient Law: Its Connection to the History of Early Society