In the Year of Our Lord · MDI · (Fict.)

By the authority of the Phoenix Archive and the ritual convening at the Temple of Scars, let this instrument be read aloud in the great hall, upon the stone, and before the carved faces that have watched the ages pass.

Preamble (Recitals).

1. Whereas it is recorded that after the conquest of the realm by William the Norman, certain grants, charters, and immunities were accorded and confirmed to the municipality called the City of London; and whereas those instruments of origin were executed in an age whose persons, laws, and notions of political consent differ from those of the living present;
2. Whereas the word common (communis) was in ancient registration used to denote of the guilds and of the trade brethren rather than to denote universal public enfranchisement;
3. Whereas the continuance of extraordinary privileges, franchises, and financial immunities, devised in and through successive ages, has matured into structures that govern contemporary public life beyond the comprehension of those who today labour under them;
4. Whereas it hath become a matter of moral and historiographical concern that assent to ancient instruments be not presumed eternal without manifest, living consent;
5. Therefore, in demonstration and in ritual articulation, this Writ is issued — not as a record of judicial enforcement but as the Archive’s ceremonial exposition and reckoning of continuity, consent, and accountability.

I. Title and Style.

This instrument shall be styled and cited as The Writ of Norman Fraud (Scriptum Fabricæ Normannæ). It shall be read as a performative declaration and archival indictment — an aesthetic juridical text designed to expose, not to litigate.

II. Jurisdiction (Symbolic).

Whereas the ancient charters claim jurisdiction by virtue of royal grant and the common law of ages, this Writ claims symbolic jurisdiction from the moral authority of recorded history, public memory, and the conscience of the living. It summons the past into judgment before the present.

III. Parties (Allegorical).

A. Prolocutor and Complainant: The People as recorded in the Phoenix Archive — those whose labour, coin, and breath sustain civic life.

B. Respondent: The Incorporation styled the City of London, its corporate persona, its derivative bodies, and the assemblage of its Livery Companies, Aldermen, and custodians (hereinafter “the Incorporation”).