Definition
A Latin phrase designating a historical writ of English common law directed to a gaoler (jailer) commanding the delivery of a convicted clerk — that is, a clergyman or person claiming benefit of clergy — into the custody of the ecclesiastical ordinary. The writ operated at the intersection of royal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, effectuating the transfer of a person convicted of felony from secular custody to church authority for punishment or purgation under canon law rather than the harsher sanctions of the royal courts.
The phrase translates roughly as "to a convicted clerk committed" and functioned as the operative writ once a prisoner successfully claimed and was allowed benefit of clergy. Upon allowance of the claim, the ordinary (typically the bishop or his representative) would appear and demand custody of the convicted person; this writ facilitated the formal handover.
Common Confusion
Rapalje & Lawrence index a closely related writ under the heading GAOLÆ IN DEFECTU ORDINARII DELIBERANDO — described as the writ that lay for the delivery of a convicted clerk to his ordinary when the ordinary failed to claim him. These two writs address opposite procedural moments in the same transaction: CLERICO CONVICTO COMMISSO concerns the affirmative transfer to a present and demanding ordinary; the GAOLÆ writ addresses the situation where the ordinary was absent or neglected to appear and claim the prisoner. Researchers encountering either writ should consult both entries, as the underlying facts may produce references to one or the other depending on whether the ordinary acted promptly.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will surface almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal sources — Year Books, early plea rolls, and treatises on criminal procedure from the medieval and early modern periods. Researchers working in those materials should note several navigational points.
First, the writ belongs to the elaborate procedural machinery of benefit of clergy, a doctrine that underwent significant transformation across several centuries before its formal abolition in England (1827) and in various American jurisdictions at different times. A source's treatment of this writ often reflects its era's assumptions about clerical privilege: earlier sources treat the transfer to the ordinary as a matter of ecclesiastical right; later sources, particularly post-Reformation, reflect the erosion of that right and the increasing subordination of clerical exemptions to royal control.
Second, the Latin form of this term means it appears inconsistently in indexes and digests. Some historical compilers file it under CLERICUS, others under the operative verb of the writ, others still under BENEFIT OF CLERGY as a subentry. Researchers who do not find it in one location should try adjacent headings.
Third, the practical significance of the writ was that it carried substantial consequences for the convicted person: delivery to the ordinary typically meant a far lighter punishment than execution, which was the standard felony sentence in the royal courts. This makes the writ relevant not only to legal history but to social and ecclesiastical history of crime and punishment.
Fourth, American researchers should be cautious about assuming this writ had domestic counterparts. Benefit of clergy was transplanted to the American colonies in modified form, but the elaborate writ machinery surrounding it — including the formal role of the ordinary — did not transfer cleanly to colonial practice, where ecclesiastical courts had no jurisdiction over criminal matters.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence do not carry a direct entry for CLERICO CONVICTO COMMISSO by that heading. The source material provided indexes the functionally related writ GAOLÆ IN DEFECTU ORDINARII DELIBERANDO, citing Reg. Orig. 69 — a reference to the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Register of Writs), one of the principal historical collections of English writ forms. That citation is genuine and traceable. The Register of Writs was a working reference for medieval English practitioners and its entries for writs in the benefit of clergy context are among the most reliable primary sources for the precise writ language.
The Rapalje & Lawrence definition of the related writ is careful and accurate within its limits: it correctly identifies the ordinary's failure to claim as the triggering condition for the GAOLÆ writ, which confirms by implication that the affirmative counterpart — delivery upon a timely claim — was the normal or expected procedure this entry addresses. Historical dictionaries of this period generally treat benefit of clergy writs as settled and archaic, offering definitions without much procedural analysis. Researchers needing fuller treatment should consult Blackstone's Commentaries (Book IV, Chapter 28) and Pollock & Maitland's History of English Law, both of which provide the doctrinal context these dictionary entries assume but do not explain.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively English in origin and has no direct equivalent in Scottish, Irish, or continental legal systems, which handled clerical privilege through distinct procedural frameworks. In American jurisdictions, benefit of clergy was received as a common law doctrine but was exercised and abolished piecemeal by statute, and the formal writ machinery associated with it in English practice was not replicated.