Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "for chattels taken by way of distraint" or "in the name of distraint." The full form — *catallis captis nomine districtionis* — denotes an obsolete common-law writ that lay where chattels had been seized as a distress and the taking was unlawful or improper. Specifically, the writ was available where a house situated within a borough had rent issuing out of it, and goods or chattels were taken in the name of distraint in connection with that rent. The writ provided a remedy for the wrongful seizure of personal property under color of distress proceedings.
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Common Confusion
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry for this term is fragmentary, and the phrase is easily confused with related writs concerning distraint generally — particularly *de homine replegiando*, replevin actions, or other writs addressed to wrongful taking of goods. The key distinction is specificity: this writ was tied to chattels taken *nomine districtionis* (in the name of distraint) within a borough context, not to unlawful taking of goods generally. Researchers encountering truncated or corrupted versions of the writ name in manuscript or early print sources should be careful not to conflate it with replevin, which ultimately superseded most of these narrower distraint-related writs.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term presents one of the more significant navigational hazards in historical legal research: the source material is fragmentary, the writ is obsolete, and the Latin phrase appears in corrupted or abbreviated form across early digests and reports. Several practical cautions apply.
First, the Rapalje & Lawrence entry itself is damaged or truncated in surviving copies, making reconstruction of the full writ name and its elements dependent on context and inference. Researchers relying solely on that single source will find the definition incomplete.
Second, the writ belongs to a cluster of borough-specific property remedies that predate the consolidation of English real property and distress law. Borough custom varied considerably, and a writ available in one borough might have no counterpart in another. Any attempt to generalize the writ's operation across jurisdictions — or across time — should be made with caution.
Third, the writ is effectively a historical curiosity by the time American law developed. No American jurisdiction adopted it, and it does not appear in the standard American treatise literature as a living remedy. Researchers working in American legal history will encounter this term only when tracing the English common-law ancestry of distraint and distress doctrines, or when reading English sources reprinted or digested for American audiences.
Fourth, the corpus connection to distraint law is the productive research path. The writ sits within a broader network of distress-related writs — *distringas*, replevin, *avowry* — and understanding those surrounding remedies will illuminate this one better than any isolated search for the writ itself.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the primary surviving source for this term in the American legal dictionary tradition, and the entry is unfortunately among the most corrupted in that work. The printed text runs the definition of *catallis captis nomine districtionis* into the adjacent entry for *casus belli* without a clean break, leaving the operative elements of the writ only partially recoverable. What can be reconstructed aligns with what English legal historians describe as part of the borough-law remedies for wrongful distraint: the writ lay where a house was within a borough, rent issued from it, and chattels were taken in the name of distraint in a manner the law did not sanction.
Older English sources — Fitzherbert's *Natura Brevium* and the *Registrum Brevium* — are the authoritative homes for this writ in its original context, though neither is part of the Law Mind corpus. Bouvier's Law Dictionary, a closer American counterpart to Rapalje & Lawrence, does not appear to carry a standalone entry for this writ, which underscores how marginal the remedy had become by the nineteenth century.
No significant divergence among historical dictionaries can be assessed because the secondary source base is so thin. The honest position is that Rapalje & Lawrence transmits a fragment, and full reconstruction requires recourse to the English register of writs tradition.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ has no American legal life. It is an English common-law form tied to borough custom that was never transplanted to American practice. Researchers working in English legal history prior to the nineteenth century will find it most relevant; American researchers will encounter it only in comparative or historical-genealogical work tracing the roots of distress and distraint doctrine.
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