Definition
A breve innominatum (Latin: "unnamed writ") is a writ that sets out only a general statement of the cause of action without specifying the particular facts, details, or circumstances underlying the claim. The opposing form is the breve nominatum, which names the specific facts — dates, amounts, quantities — with particularity. The distinction tracks how much factual content the writ itself was required to disclose before the action could proceed.
The term belongs to the formal taxonomy of common law writs that structured pleading in English courts from the medieval period through the era of common law forms of action. It is not a writ of specific content but a classificatory label applied to writs that operated at a higher level of generality.
Common Confusion
Breve innominatum is frequently paired with — and should not be confused with — breve nominatum. The nominatum writ was required to state specific particulars (for example, the exact sum owed or the precise date of a transaction), and a failure to allege those particulars correctly could be fatal to the action. The innominatum writ carried no such burden of precision. A researcher encountering references to one should check whether the source is drawing a contrast with the other; the distinction matters when evaluating historical pleading requirements and the consequences of variance between writ and proof.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively encountered in historical legal sources dealing with the English common law writ system. It will not appear in modern procedural codes; the forms of action were abolished in England by the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 and in American federal practice by the adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938. Researchers should treat any appearance of this term as a strong signal that the surrounding text is operating within a pre-reform pleading framework.
The practical research consequence: when reading early English reports, treatises, or colonial American pleading materials, the innominatum/nominatum distinction explains why some writs were vulnerable to challenge for want of particularity and others were not. A writ classified as innominatum could proceed without alleging specific dates or sums; a nominatum writ could not survive variance between the facts alleged and the facts proved.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should note that the term appears primarily in doctrinal summaries and glossaries rather than in judicial opinions directly. When Coke's Institutes are cited in connection with this term (as they are in Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence, referencing 2 Inst. 39), the surrounding passage typically addresses the nature and function of writs generally, not breve innominatum as a contested issue in litigation. That context is important: the term functions more as a classification tool in treatise literature than as a live pleading concept in reported cases.
Cross-reference awareness: discussions of breve innominatum frequently appear alongside treatments of original writs, judicial writs, and the distinction between real, personal, and mixed actions. A researcher who encounters the term in one source should follow those threads rather than treating it as a self-contained entry.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence are in complete agreement on the core definition: a writ stating the cause of action in general terms only, without particulars. All three share substantially identical language, suggesting derivation from a common source — likely Coke's Institutes, which all either cite directly or implicitly follow.
Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence both reproduce the Latin maxim: Breve ita dicitur, quia rem de qua agitur, et intentionem petentis, paucis verbis breviter enarrat ("A writ is so called because it briefly states, in few words, the matter in dispute, and the object of the party seeking relief"), attributed to 2 Inst. 39. Bouvier omits this gloss but reaches the same functional conclusion.
None of the three historical dictionaries provides examples of specific writs classified as innominatum or explains which writs in common use fell into this category versus the nominatum category — a gap that limits their utility for researchers trying to apply the distinction to particular historical actions. For that analysis, the original treatise literature, particularly Coke and later Blackstone's Commentaries, is more instructive than any of these dictionary entries standing alone.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Forms of Action; Writs, Common Law; Pleading, Historical Development