Editing Champerty and maintenance (section)

==History==
The restrictions arose to combat abuses in [[medieval]] England. Unscrupulous [[Nobility|noble]]s and [[royal court|royal official]]s would lend their names to bolster the credibility of doubtful and [[fraud]]ulent claims in return for a share of the property recovered.<ref>Winfield (1919)</ref> Speaking extrajudicially in the early seventeenth century, [[Edward Coke|Lord Chief Justice Coke]] described the origins of maintenance in this way:<ref>1 Coke Litt 368b, cited in Friston, M, Civil Costs Law and Practice (2nd ed), Jordans, {{ISBN|978-1846613128}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|Maintenance, ''manutenentia'', is derived from the verb ''manutenere'', and signifieth in law a taking in hand, bearing up, or upholding of quarrels and sides, to the disturbance or hindrance of common right.}}

The comments were made in context of the court previously having been anxious to prevent a wide range of maintenance; the term "maintenance" had been used to apply not just to those who gave support in civil claims, but also to those who sought to maintain robbers, heretics and even "a new sect coming from beyond the sea, clad in white garments".<ref>Friston, M, Civil Costs Law and Practice (2nd ed), Jordans, {{ISBN|978-1846613128}}</ref> [[Judicial independence]] was gradually established, however, and by the early 19th century [[Jeremy Bentham]] wrote:<ref>''Works'' (Bowring (ed), 1843) vol 3, pp 19–20</ref>

{{Blockquote|A mischief, in those times it seems but too common, though a mischief not to be cured by such laws, was, that a man would buy a weak claim, in hopes that power might convert it into a strong one, and that the sword of a baron, stalking into court with a rabble of retainers at his heels, might strike terror into the eyes of a judge upon the bench. At present, what cares an English judge for the swords of a hundred barons? Neither fearing nor hoping, hating nor loving, the judge of our days is ready with equal phlegm to administer, upon all occasions, that system, whatever it be, of justice or injustice, which the law has put into his hands.}}