Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "for hearing and determining." Audiendo et terminando was a writ or royal commission issuing to designated commissioners, authorizing them to hear and adjudicate cases of insurrection or serious riot. It was not a standing court but a special delegation of judicial power — a mechanism by which the Crown could dispatch authority to specific persons to suppress disorder and punish offenders on the spot, without waiting for the ordinary machinery of assize or general eyre to convene.
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Common Confusion
Audiendo et terminando is closely related to, and easily confused with, the commission of oyer and terminer. The Latin root is identical in meaning — oyer et terminer is simply the Anglo-French rendering of the same phrase — and both authorized designated commissioners to hear and determine criminal matters. The practical distinction in English legal history is one of scope and context: oyer and terminer developed into a broader, regularized commission used for ordinary circuit criminal jurisdiction, while audiendo et terminando was historically associated specifically with the suppression of riots and insurrections. Researchers encountering either term in historical records should not assume interchangeability without examining the specific commission language and the nature of the proceedings involved.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal sources. Researchers should be aware of several navigational points:
First, the term is archaic and will not appear in modern statutory or case law. Its relevance is confined to English legal history, particularly the medieval and early modern periods when extraordinary royal commissions were a primary tool of crisis governance.
Second, the two Black's editions reproduce the entry identically, both tracing to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (cited as "Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 110"). This is a reference to Anthony Fitzherbert's classic treatise on writs, a foundational source for understanding the original writ forms. Researchers tracing the primary source should consult that work directly rather than relying solely on the dictionary summary.
Third, because audiendo et terminando and oyer and terminer share a conceptual and linguistic root, historical sources sometimes use them interchangeably or treat audiendo et terminando as a subspecies of the broader oyer and terminer commission. Cross-referencing entries on oyer and terminer in any historical legal dictionary will typically yield more extensive treatment of the underlying commission framework.
Fourth, the writ's connection to riot and insurrection suppression places it in a cluster of emergency legal instruments — alongside commissions of array, proclamations under riot statutes, and related mechanisms — that researchers studying civil disorder, Crown prerogative, or emergency powers in English history will need to map together.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's editions define the term identically: "A writ or commission to certain persons to appease and punish any insurrection or great riot." The entries are terse, consistent, and trace to the same Fitzherbert citation. Neither edition elaborates on the procedural mechanics, the appointing authority, the composition of the commission, or the historical period of the writ's active use.
What the historical dictionaries leave unaddressed is the relationship between this writ and the broader oyer and terminer commission system — a significant gap, since the two instruments share the same Latin meaning and operated through the same general mechanism of royal delegation. Researchers relying on dictionary entries alone will miss that doctrinal and historical context entirely.
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Jurisdictional Note
Audiendo et terminando is a term of English legal history with no operative modern jurisdiction. It does not appear in American, Canadian, or other common law jurisdictions as a live legal instrument. Any reference to the term in post-colonial legal sources is historical or scholarly in nature.
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