Definition
Amotibilis is a Latin legal term meaning removable or capable of being removed from an office or position. It describes an officeholder, officer, or occupant of a role whose tenure is not permanent and who may be displaced by competent authority. The term appears in medieval legal Latin as the antonym of perpetual tenure and was used to classify the nature of appointments and offices according to whether the holder enjoyed a fixed, irremovable right to the position or held it at the pleasure of another.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in medieval Latin legal texts and in secondary sources treating the law of offices, tenure, and ecclesiastical appointments. Researchers encountering amotibilis in primary sources should treat it as a marker in a broader classification scheme: medieval jurists categorized officers and appointees along the axis of removability, and the presence of this term signals a passage bearing on the nature of tenure, the grounds for removal, or the distinction between offices held at will and offices held for life or in fee.
The phrase amotibiles et non perpetui, drawn from Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae (fol. 12a), is the most significant appearance of this term in the English common law tradition. That passage addresses the classification of those who hold positions or perform functions under another's authority and are subject to displacement — a concept with implications reaching into later English law on public office, agency, and the power of appointment. Researchers working on the history of tenure of office, the common law treatment of royal officers, or the ecclesiastical law of benefices should note the Bracton passage as a reference point.
Because the term is a technical Latin adjective derived from the verb amovere (to move away, to remove), it will not appear in English-language sources except in Latin quotation or in translations of civil and canon law texts. Legal dictionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may translate or paraphrase the concept without using the word itself, typically under entries for removal, office, or tenure. Researchers working backward from later doctrines on at-will removal of officers, or forward from Roman and canon law treatments of revocable appointments, should watch for the underlying concept even when the Latin term is absent.
There is no modern statutory or common law use of amotibilis as such. Its research value is primarily historical and terminological: it anchors a researcher in the medieval classification of tenure and connects the English common law tradition, through Bracton, to the Roman and canon law sources from which that vocabulary was drawn.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical dictionary entry for this term in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill defines amotibilis concisely as "amoveable; that may be amoved, or removed," deriving the term from amovere, and cites the Bracton passage (fol. 12a) with the phrase amotibiles et non perpetui. The entry is brief but accurate. No other shelf sources in the corpus treat this term, which reflects its narrow technical usage and its confinement to Latin legal literature.
Burrill's cross-reference to amovere is useful: that related entry develops the broader concept of removal and will provide more doctrinal context for researchers who need to understand the legal act being described, rather than merely the characteristic of the office or officer.
The Bracton citation is genuine. De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, attributed to Henry de Bracton (fl. mid-thirteenth century), is a foundational text of medieval English common law and is available in scholarly editions. Folio 12a falls within Bracton's preliminary classifications of persons and their legal statuses, which is consistent with a discussion of removable versus permanent officeholders.
Jurisdictional Note
Amotibilis is a term of medieval Latin legal literature with relevance primarily to the English common law tradition through Bracton, and to civil and canon law traditions more broadly. It has no jurisdiction-specific modern usage.