Definition
In old Scots law, a ritualized formula of accusation used in criminal proceedings. The phrase formed part of the formal verbal charge by which a pursuer (prosecutor or complaining party) accused a defender (respondent) of a wrong. The formula was prescribed by law and had to be recited in set terms to properly initiate or sustain certain criminal pleas, particularly pleas of wrong and unlaw. It functioned as a term of art within the Scottish criminal pleading system, serving a role analogous to the formal recitation of charges in other legal traditions.
The formula in practice ran along the lines of the pursuer declaring that he "did clep and call" the defender with wrong and unlaw, specifying the harm done and the sum of damages claimed. Both words — clep (to name or call out) and call (to summon or accuse) — carried the force of formal legal accusation when joined in this construction.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs firmly to historical Scots law and will not appear in modern Scottish or Anglo-American legal materials in any operative sense. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in early Scots legal records, treatises on historical Scottish procedure, and antiquarian legal dictionaries. Its presence in a document is a reliable marker of pre-Union or early post-Union Scottish criminal pleading practice.
The principal navigational trap is treating the phrase as a generic or informal expression. In context, clep and call was a term of precision — its omission or misrecitation in a plea could affect the legal sufficiency of the accusation. Researchers working with Scots criminal records from the medieval or early modern period should treat its appearance as a signal that formal pleading requirements are in play and consult sources on historical Scots criminal procedure accordingly.
The phrase also illustrates the distinctiveness of historical Scots legal terminology from English common law equivalents. English pleading relied on its own formal verbal structures, but the specific formula clep and call has no direct English counterpart. Researchers moving between Scots and English historical sources should not attempt to map this term onto English pleading doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the essential definition: clep and call is a solemn, law-prescribed formula used in old Scots criminal practice, particularly in pleas of wrong and unlaw. Black's (both editions) offer the same compact description without elaboration.
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the most instructive entry, quoting directly from Skene's De Verborum Significatione — a foundational glossary of Scots legal terms compiled by Sir John Skene and published in 1597. The quoted passage illustrates the formula in operation: "As when the persewer did clep and call the defender with wouth wrang and unlaw, in harming and skaithing of him of sik ane thing, or of sik ane summe of silver mair or lesse, to his great harme and skaith." This passage is the closest any of the source dictionaries comes to showing the term in live use, and Skene's work remains the primary historical authority.
Burrill also notes the adjacent entry for Cler/Cleur/Clur, a Law French word for clerk, citing Kelham — a reminder that historical dictionaries often group phonetically or orthographically similar terms regardless of their linguistic or doctrinal relationship. Researchers should not infer any connection between clep and call and the Scots or Law French terminology for clerks.
None of the historical sources explain the procedural consequences of using or omitting the formula, or describe how courts treated defective recitations. For that level of procedural detail, researchers must look beyond the dictionary literature to historical Scots criminal law treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
Clep and call is specific to historical Scots law. It has no recognized counterpart in English common law, Welsh law, or Irish legal tradition. It predates or reflects early Scots criminal procedure as it existed before and in the period following the Acts of Union, and has no operative meaning in modern Scottish law.