Definition
A historical English writ that directed the release of a convicted clerk (a person in holy orders) from gaol to his ordinary — the diocesan bishop or other ecclesiastical superior having jurisdiction over him — when that ordinary had failed to claim the clerk as was his right under the privilege of clergy. The writ was a procedural remedy designed to enforce the Church's entitlement to exercise jurisdiction over its own members, compelling the secular authorities to surrender custody of the convicted cleric to ecclesiastical hands.
The term translates roughly as "for delivering to gaol a convicted clerk committed in default of the ordinary." In practice, it operated as a check on the secular detention of clergy: if the ordinary neglected or declined to claim his clerk after conviction, the clerk remained in the king's gaol, and this writ provided the mechanism by which he could still be transferred to ecclesiastical custody upon the ordinary's later appearance or demand.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in antiquarian and historical legal sources dealing with benefit of clergy — one of the most consequential doctrines in medieval and early modern English criminal law. Researchers encountering this writ should treat it as a navigational marker pointing toward the broader benefit of clergy framework: it is a procedural detail within that system, not a standalone doctrine.
The term's irregular spelling across historical sources — including the truncated "Convtcto" and "Ordinarh" found in some printed editions — reflects the compression and abbreviation common to Latin writs in manuscript and early print sources. Researchers should not assume a corrupted source when encountering these contractions; they are typical of the period's legal Latin shorthand.
Because benefit of clergy was progressively modified, restricted, and ultimately abolished by statute in England (the last vestiges were removed by the Criminal Law Act 1827), this writ has no operative legal significance today. Its relevance is purely historical. Researchers working with Year Books, early plea rolls, or ecclesiastical court records from the twelfth through eighteenth centuries may encounter references to it in the context of disputes between secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions over the bodies and punishment of convicted clergy.
The writ also has indirect relevance to American colonial legal history: benefit of clergy was received into colonial common law and remained in limited use in several American jurisdictions into the early nineteenth century, though this particular writ — tied as it is to the institutional structure of the Church of England and its ordinaries — had little practical American application.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides the only dictionary entry located in the Law Mind corpus for this term. The definition is spare but accurate: "An ancient writ, that lay for the delivery to his ordinary of a clerk convicted of felony, where the ordinary did not challenge him according to the privilege of clerks. Reg. orig. 69."
The citation to "Reg. orig. 69" refers to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, the standard register of original writs used by English practitioners from the medieval period onward. This is a real and verifiable source. The register catalogued the forms of writs available in the royal courts, and its citation here confirms this writ's formal standing as part of the established procedural repertoire of English common law courts — not merely a theoretical or academic construct.
No other historical dictionary source in the Law Mind corpus provides a competing or supplementary definition. Researchers needing deeper treatment should consult primary sources on benefit of clergy directly, including Blackstone's Commentaries (Book IV, Chapter 28), which provides the fullest accessible treatment of how the clergy's privilege operated in practice and what happened when an ordinary failed to appear.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively a product of English ecclesiastical and common law, dependent on the institutional structure of the Church of England and its hierarchy of ordinaries. It has no equivalent in Scots law, American law, or continental legal systems. Researchers working in non-English jurisdictions should look instead to analogous ecclesiastical privilege doctrines within those legal traditions.