Note 209 — SECTION VI
Reading edition
This procedure was first authorised by the Statute of Acton Burnel (1283), the main provisions of which run as follows:
"Forasmuch as merchants, who before these times have lent their goods to divers folk, are fallen into poverty, because there was no speedy law provided whereby they could readily recover their debts at the day fixed for payment, and for that reason many merchants have ceased to come to this land with their merchandise to the damage of the merchants and of the whole realm: the King, by himself and his council ... has ordained and established that the merchant who will be sure of his debt cause his debtor to come before the mayor ... and ... to acknowledge the debt and the day of payment, and that the recognisance be enrolled.... And if the debtor pay not at the day fixed for him ... the mayor ... shall forthwith cause the moveables of the debtor to be sold to the amount of the debt ... and the money to be paid without delay to the creditors.... And if the debtor have no moveables in the power of the mayor from which the debt can be levied, but have the same elsewhere in the realm, then the mayor shall send to the Chancellor ... the recognisance made before him ... and the Chancellor shall send a writ to the sheriff in whose bailiwick the debtor shall have moveables, and the sheriff shall cause satisfaction to be made to the creditor.... And if the debtor have no moveables wherefrom the debt can be levied, then his body shall be taken, wheresoever he be found, and kept in prison until he have made satisfaction, or his friends for him."
Two years later (1285) the Statute for Merchants strengthened the creditor's security by providing that imprisonment should immediately follow non-payment of the debt.