CAUSAM NOBIS SIGNIFICES

Definition

A writ of Latin origin whose name translates roughly as "you signify to us the reason" or "signify to us the cause." In old English practice, causam nobis significes was an original writ directed to a mayor of a town or city who had been commanded by a prior royal writ to deliver seisin of lands to the king's grantee but had failed to do so. The writ required the mayor to explain to the king's court the reason for noncompliance with that earlier command. It functioned as a coercive procedural mechanism — a demand for justification before further royal action would be taken against the defaulting official. The writ belongs to a family of royal process directed at local officials who held ministerial responsibilities in the execution of land grants. Its operation presupposed a prior command already issued and unexecuted, making it a secondary or remedial writ rather than an original action on the merits of a land claim. ---

Why It Matters in Research

This is an obscure term of art from medieval and early modern English practice, and researchers encountering it should treat it as a marker of a very specific procedural moment: a royal officer's failure to execute a seisin command, followed by a demand for explanation. If this writ appears in a historical record or pleading, it signals that a land grant transaction had already been initiated through prior royal process, and that something had gone wrong at the local execution stage. Researchers working in early English land law, the Year Books, or pre-Judicature Act procedural materials should be alert to two traps. First, the writ is easily overlooked in indexes because it may be catalogued under "causam," under "significes," or under parent writs relating to seisin and royal grants rather than under its full Latin name. Second, sources may discuss it elliptically in the context of the prior command writ rather than in its own right, meaning the procedural sequence must be reconstructed across multiple entries or sources. Because the writ became obsolete well before the nineteenth century, it does not appear in American legal materials in any functional sense. Its relevance in Law Mind corpus research is almost entirely historical and comparative — appearing in treatises on English writ practice, discussions of prerogative writs, and encyclopedic surveys of abolished forms of action. Researchers interested in the broader machinery of royal land grants, the office of mayor as a conduit of Crown administration, or the mechanics of seisin delivery will find this writ a useful point of connection in understanding how failure at any link in that chain was addressed procedurally. The writ also carries methodological value: it illustrates the granularity of the old writ system, in which a distinct royal command existed for almost every discrete failure or deviation in a legal process. Understanding this granularity is essential to reading historical sources that assume familiarity with the full procedural sequence. ---

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill is the more useful source here. He identifies the writ clearly, renders the Latin accurately, places it within old English practice, and connects it to the specific scenario of a mayor commanded to give seisin who had not done so. His entry, though brief, supplies the essential procedural context. Rapalje and Lawrence are less directly helpful. Their relevant passage appears to be fragmentary as reproduced in the source material — the entry trails off into a discussion of the term "cause" in the sense of a civil proceeding, which is a distinct concept entirely. This likely reflects an indexing or excerpt issue rather than a deficiency in the original dictionary. Researchers relying on Rapalje and Lawrence for this term should verify whether their copy contains a fuller entry under the Latin phrase itself or under related writ headings. Neither source provides detail on when the writ fell into disuse, how frequently it was employed in practice, or whether it had analogues in the courts of other jurisdictions. Older treatise literature on English writ practice — particularly works dealing with original writs and prerogative process — would be the appropriate next step for deeper investigation. ---

Jurisdictional Note

This writ was exclusively a creature of old English royal practice. It has no American counterpart and no functional analogue in post-Judicature Act English procedure. Researchers should not expect to find it in American legal dictionaries or digests except as a historical curiosity. ---

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