Court of Common Pleas (England)

The Court of Common Pleas, also called the Common Bench, was a common law court in the English legal system that heard common pleas, meaning actions between subject and subject that did not concern the king. Created in the late twelfth to early thirteenth century after splitting from the Exchequer of Pleas, it served as one of the central English courts for around six hundred years and sat in Westminster Hall. Sir Edward Coke called it the lock and key of the common law because it kept exclusive jurisdiction over real property. The Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 merged the superior courts into the High Court of Justice, and the Common Pleas Division ended with an Order in Council of 16 December 1880.