Definition
Actiones nominatae (Latin: "named actions") were, in the English Court of Chancery, writs for which established precedents already existed. A writ was "named" in the sense that it had a recognized form, a settled pattern of pleading, and a known procedural course. A litigant seeking relief could obtain one of these writs as a matter of course, provided the facts fell within the recognized form.
The term gains its full significance only against its counterpart. Where a plaintiff's grievance did not fit any existing named writ, the chancery originally had no ready mechanism to provide relief. The Statute of Westminster II (1285), chapter 24, changed this by authorizing the clerks of chancery to issue new writs in consimili casu — in similar cases — where the facts resembled a recognized writ but did not match it precisely. This statutory grant of flexibility is the direct ancestor of the action on the case (trespass on the case), which became one of the most expansive common-law remedial tools in English legal history.
Common Confusion
The phrase should not be confused with the Roman law concept of actiones in factum or the classical Roman taxonomy of named versus unnamed contracts. Although the Latin vocabulary is shared, the English chancery usage of actiones nominatae is a distinct procedural category rooted in medieval English writ practice, not Roman civil law. Researchers encountering the term in Roman law contexts should treat it as a separate body of doctrine.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively historical. Modern researchers will encounter it when tracing the origins of the action on the case, the development of common-law pleading, or the jurisdictional expansion of the chancery after 1285.
Several research traps deserve attention:
First, the term rarely appears in primary sources by this Latin label. Medieval chancery records and early common-law reports typically describe specific named writs (trespass, debt, detinue, covenant) rather than grouping them under the heading actiones nominatae. The label is largely a retrospective organizational tool used by legal historians and dictionary compilers.
Second, the Statute of Westminster II is the essential pivot point. Any research into actiones nominatae that does not engage with that statute — and with its chapter 24 specifically — is incomplete. The statute did not abolish named actions; it created a supplementary mechanism alongside them. The coexistence of the old named writs and the new in consimili casu writs generated centuries of pleading complexity.
Third, the Acton Burnel reference in Black's entry warrants care. The Statute of Acton Burnel (1283) and the Statute of Merchants (also associated with that parliament) concerned debt recovery and merchants' obligations — related but distinct from the writ-expansion question addressed by Westminster II. Black's citation conflates two separate legislative events from closely adjacent years of Edward I's reign. Researchers relying on Black's for this history should verify against Reeves's History of the English Law directly.
Fourth, the conceptual lineage matters for modern research. The action on the case, born from the in consimili casu power, eventually gave rise to assumpsit, which underlies modern contract enforcement. Researchers tracing the foundations of contractual remedies — including nominal damages doctrine — will pass through this history.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary provides the only dictionary entry among the Law Mind shelf sources. The definition is brief and accurate in its essentials: writs with precedents, Statute of Westminster II, in consimili casu authority, action on the case. The citation to Reeves (History of the English Law, volume 2, pages 158–162) is a legitimate primary historiographical source and remains useful.
What Black's does not capture is the procedural texture of the distinction. The named/unnamed binary was not merely taxonomic — it determined which court could act, what fees applied, what pleading rules governed, and whether a plaintiff had a remedy at all. The brevity of the Black's entry understates how much weight this classification carried in medieval and early modern practice.
No other shelf source addresses the term directly, which itself signals how thoroughly the concept has been absorbed into legal history rather than surviving as living doctrine.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The named-action system is most relevant to Law Mind corpus researchers through its remedial descendants. For the downstream doctrinal consequences:
— Damages and Remedies in Tort — Nominal Damages in Tort (The Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia, torts_172): The writ system's historical requirement that a plaintiff identify a recognized cause of action connects to the modern question of when nominal damages are available.
— Contracts — Adequacy of Consideration and Nominal Consideration (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia, contracts_7): The evolution from named writs through assumpsit into modern contract doctrine runs through the history this term anchors.