REQUEST, in law, a supplication or petition preferred to a prince, or to a court of justice; begg-
ging relief in some confiscable cases where the common law grants no immediate redress.
Court of Request (curia requisitum) was a court of equity, of the same nature with the court of chancery, but inferior to it; principally instituted for the relief of such petitioners as in confiscable cases addressed themselves by supplication to his majesty. Of this court the lord privy-seal was chief judge, assisted by the masters of requests; and it had beginning about the 9 H. 7. according to Sir Julius Cæsar's tractate upon this subject: though Mr Gwyn, in his preface to his Readings, faith it began from a commission first granted by king Henry VIII.—This court, having assumed great power to itself, so that it became burthensome, Mich. anno 40 and 41 Eliz. in the court of common-pleas it was adjudged upon solemn argument, that the court of requests was no court of judicature, &c. and by stat. 16 & 17 Car. 1. c. 10. it was taken away.