Definition
A writ of justices formerly available to a surety against a creditor who refused to discharge or acquit the surety after the underlying debt had been satisfied. The writ compelled the creditor to formally release the surety from further liability once the obligation had been fulfilled. The name derives from the Latin for "for acquitting pledges" or "for discharging sureties."
The writ addressed a specific inequity: a surety who had guaranteed another's debt and ensured that debt was paid could remain exposed to continued claims or harassment by an uncooperative creditor. Acquietandis plegiis provided the legal mechanism to force that release.
Common Confusion
The term is sometimes loosely grouped with general writs of acquittance or release, but acquietandis plegiis was a distinct procedural remedy with a precise target — the creditor's refusal to discharge a surety after satisfaction — not a general-purpose release instrument. It should not be conflated with a simple acquittance (a written receipt or discharge of a debt) or with writs directed at co-sureties.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is archaic in active legal practice and will appear only in historical sources, primarily English common law materials predating the abolition of the forms of action. Researchers encountering it should be aware of several navigational points.
First, the writ belongs to the now-obsolete system of original writs and writs of justices — a distinction that mattered procedurally in English practice. A writ of justices directed the sheriff to do justice in a local court, bypassing the central royal courts. This procedural character is relevant when tracing how the remedy functioned compared to actions brought in King's Bench or Common Pleas.
Second, American legal materials rarely use this term operationally. It appears in American legal dictionaries and encyclopedias of the nineteenth century primarily as a carryover from English sources, not as a remedy that was actively litigated in U.S. courts. If encountered in an American legal text, it is almost certainly descriptive or taxonomic rather than substantive.
Third, the underlying suretyship problem the writ addressed — a creditor's failure to release a surety after satisfaction — did not disappear with the writ. Modern researchers tracing the doctrinal line forward should look to actions for indemnification, contribution, and subrogation in suretyship law, as well as statutory discharge provisions in commercial contexts. The writ itself is a dead end; the legal problem it solved is not.
Fourth, Bouvier's entry for this term appears to be corrupted or misdirected in the available corpus, referencing only a partial citation fragment. Researchers relying on Bouvier's as a source for this term should treat that entry with caution and verify against Black's or primary English sources such as Registrum Omnium Brevium, which both editions of Black's cite as the underlying authority (Reg. Writs, 158).
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary provide essentially the same definition: a writ of justices lying for the surety against a creditor who refuses to acquit the surety after the debt is satisfied, citing Reg. Writs, 158, Cowell, and Blount. The consistency across editions reflects that this term required no updating — it was historical when Black's first recorded it.
Bouvier's entry, as it appears in the available source material, is fragmentary and non-substantive, offering no independent analysis. This is unusual for Bouvier's, which typically provides more discursive treatment of older common law terms. The gap in Bouvier's coverage is itself a research signal: the term may have been treated as sufficiently settled (or sufficiently obsolete) to warrant only passing reference.
Cowell's Interpreter and Blount's Nomo-Lexicon, cited in Black's, are seventeenth-century English legal dictionaries that would contain the most contemporaneous common law treatment of this writ. Researchers needing primary-source depth should consult those works directly. The Registrum Omnium Brevium is the foundational register of English writs and would contain the writ's actual form.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively English in origin and has no direct analog in American procedural law. It is effectively obsolete following the abolition of the English forms of action in the nineteenth century. No American jurisdiction adopted it as a named remedy.