Definition
A writ in English ecclesiastical law directed against a bishop who continues to hold an excommunicated person in prison for contempt after that person has offered sufficient caution — that is, security or surety — to obey the orders and commandments of the church going forward. The writ compels the bishop to accept the offered security and release the prisoner rather than maintain imprisonment after the grounds for it have been effectively answered.
The name derives from Latin: cautione, meaning security or bail, and admittenda, meaning to be admitted or received. Together: a writ for the admission (acceptance) of security.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of specialized historical interest, relevant primarily to researchers working in English ecclesiastical law, canon law procedure, or the history of imprisonment for contempt. It has no modern practical application in American law and limited modern relevance in English law following the disestablishment of church courts' coercive civil jurisdiction.
Researchers encountering this term in historical sources should understand the institutional context: English ecclesiastical courts once held genuine coercive power, including the authority to imprison for contempt of their orders. The writ of cautione admittenda operated as a check on that power — a mechanism by which the common law courts could intervene when a bishop refused to accept adequate security and release a prisoner who had effectively purged his contempt. It reflects the contested boundary between ecclesiastical and common law jurisdiction that characterized English legal history through the seventeenth century.
The term appears in Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.), the standard register of writs, which is the authoritative historical source for its procedural context. Researchers consulting Cowell's Interpreter will find a complementary entry. Both are cited in the historical dictionaries.
The writ is part of a family of ecclesiastical writs — alongside significavit, de excommunicato capiendo, and de excommunicato deliberando — that governed the interface between ecclesiastical censure and civil imprisonment. Understanding cautione admittenda requires familiarity with that broader writ system. A researcher who encounters it in isolation may underestimate how procedurally embedded it was in the larger apparatus of ecclesiastical enforcement.
Because this term appears only in historical sources and in archival or ecclesiastical court records, it will not be found in modern statutory codes or case reporters. Research paths run through historical writ registers, ecclesiastical court records, and secondary scholarship on the history of church courts in England.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in close agreement. Rapalje & Lawrence and Black's (2nd Ed.) offer substantively identical definitions, both citing Reg. Orig. 66. Black's (1st Ed.) entry appears to have suffered a printing or transcription error in the source material — the definition trails off and merges with an unrelated entry on cause of action — but the recoverable content aligns with the other two sources.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds one useful detail not present in Black's: the parenthetical entry for CAUTIONER immediately following, defining it as (1) a surety or bondsman, and (2) one who files a caution. This confirms that caution in this context means a formal security or pledge, not a warning — a point of real importance for reading these sources accurately. The Scottish legal usage of cautioner as surety is a live usage that survived into modern Scots law, and researchers working in Scottish legal history will encounter it in a non-archaic sense.
None of the historical dictionaries provide substantive procedural history or explain the institutional relationship between this writ and the broader system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For that context, researchers must go to primary sources (Reg. Orig., Cowell) or to secondary scholarship on ecclesiastical courts.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ has no application in American law. It is a creature of the English ecclesiastical court system, which was never transplanted to the American colonies or states. Researchers in American legal history will encounter it only as a historical reference or in comparative discussions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.