Definition
Brevibus et rotulis liberandis (Latin: "for delivering writs and rolls") is a historical writ directed to a sheriff commanding him to deliver to his incoming successor the county and all appurtenances of the office — including the rolls, briefs, remembrances, and all other records and materials belonging to the shrievalty. The writ served as the formal legal mechanism for transferring administrative custody of a sheriff's office upon the appointment or election of a new sheriff.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow, archaic writ of English origin with no surviving counterpart in modern American or English law. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in historical materials concerning the administration of the shrievalty, the functioning of county-level royal administration, or the broader procedural law of writs in pre-modern English practice.
The writ belongs to the register of original writs (Registrum Brevium), which is the primary source cited in historical dictionaries for its existence. Researchers working with medieval or early modern English administrative records, plea rolls, or chancery records may find references to this writ as part of the formal machinery governing the transfer of county records at the change of a sheriff. Its significance is less doctrinal than administrative: it enforced continuity of official recordkeeping and prevented a departing sheriff from withholding county materials.
For Law Mind corpus researchers, this term is unlikely to appear in American case law or statutory materials. Its presence in a legal source should flag that the document or treatise in question is engaging with English common law forms, chancery practice, or antiquarian legal scholarship. Cross-referencing with materials on the shrievalty, the Registrum Brevium, and the general category of prerogative writs will provide the most productive context.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides the sole entry in the available source material, defining the writ as a mandate to a sheriff to deliver to his successor the county and appurtenances, "with the rolls, briefs, remembrance, and all other things belonging to his office," citing the Registrum Originale at page 295. This citation to the Reg. orig. (Registrum Brevium Originalium) is consistent with how such writs were catalogued in the English register of chancery writs, which served as the authoritative reference for available original writs in classical common law practice.
The entry is brief and purely descriptive, which reflects both the narrow function of the writ and its status as a procedural formality rather than a substantive legal doctrine. Historical dictionaries generally treat writs of this class as part of the administrative apparatus of English county government rather than as sources of litigated rights. No significant interpretive divergence appears across historical sources because the writ's function was essentially self-defining: it compelled delivery, nothing more.
What historical dictionaries do not address — and what researchers should be aware of — is the relationship between this writ and the broader accountability mechanisms governing sheriffs, including writs of account and other remedies available against departing officers who failed to maintain or transfer records properly. The brevibus et rotulis liberandis was one instrument within a larger system; the historical record is sparse on how frequently it was actually issued or what consequences attached to non-compliance.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively English in origin and has no recognized American equivalent. American states developed their own statutory procedures for the transfer of county offices, rendering this writ obsolete in any common law jurisdiction that adopted American practice. It appears only in the context of English legal history and antiquarian legal scholarship.