Definition
A writ of ancient English origin directing the removal of a bailiff from his office on the ground that he held insufficient land within the bailiwick. The writ operated as a formal mechanism of accountability: because a bailiff's authority derived in part from his stake in the territory he administered, a man without adequate landholding in that jurisdiction was considered unfit to hold the office. The writ compelled his removal.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal materials and in sources tracing the history of local administrative offices. Researchers encountering it in historical writs, plea rolls, or treatises on English common law should understand it as a species of the broader category of writs addressed to the fitness and qualification of officers — distinct from writs of ouster based on misconduct or criminal conviction.
The property qualification embedded in this writ reflects a now-defunct principle linking territorial landholding to administrative legitimacy. Modern Anglo-American law has no functional equivalent; removal of public officers today proceeds by statute, impeachment, or judicial process, not by writ grounded in land tenure. A researcher tracing the genealogy of officer-removal procedures should note this writ as an early institutional antecedent, not a living doctrine.
The citation to Reg. Orig. 78 refers to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, the register of original writs used by English practitioners as a formulary. That reference is the primary anchor for the writ's formal existence; researchers working with early English writ practice should consult the Registrum directly when the precise form of the writ is at issue.
Because both editions of Black's reproduce the entry without modification or expansion, the writ had not evolved or acquired new interpretive gloss between those editions. This signals a term that had already passed entirely out of active use by the time Black's was compiled. Do not expect modern case law, statutory treatment, or secondary doctrinal development.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's Law Dictionary editions are in complete agreement, reproducing the definition word for word and citing the same source. No divergence exists between the two editions, and neither provides additional context, commentary, or illustration beyond the bare definition and the Registrum citation. The brevity of both entries is itself informative: by the late nineteenth century, ballivo amovendo was treated as a relic meriting preservation but not elaboration.
Historical dictionaries do not address the procedural mechanics of how the writ was issued, who could petition for it, what quantum of land was considered sufficient, or how removal was enforced once the writ issued. Researchers requiring those details must look to the Registrum Omnium Brevium and to English legal historians writing on the bailiwick system.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively a creature of English common law and has no recognized counterpart in American law. It did not cross the Atlantic as part of the inherited common law applicable in the colonies or the early republic. Jurisdictional variation is not a relevant research concern.