Definition
Clericus pacis (Latin: "clerk of the peace") is the Latin designation for the Clerk of the Peace, a historical English county officer responsible for maintaining official records related to the administration of criminal justice and the keeping of the public peace. The officer served the justices of the peace, attending quarter sessions, recording indictments and recognizances, enrolling orders, and performing the general clerical and administrative functions of the court of quarter sessions.
The office was a creature of English local government rather than the central royal courts, and its duties were primarily record-keeping and administrative rather than judicial.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is Latin shorthand for an office that appears under several names across historical sources. Researchers encountering clericus pacis in Latin legal records, plea rolls, or county administrative documents should understand that the term is interchangeable with Clerk of the Peace, and that Bouvier's treats the Latin form as a cross-reference directing readers to that English entry. Searching only for the Latin form in historical English records will miss the majority of relevant material, which appears under the English designation or abbreviated forms such as "Clk. of the Peace."
The office itself evolved considerably over several centuries. In its earlier form it was closely tied to the justices of the peace as a practical necessity for managing the business of quarter sessions. By the nineteenth century, the Clerk of the Peace had accumulated a broader portfolio of county administrative functions. Researchers working in English local government history, criminal procedure history, or the history of the justices of the peace system should treat clericus pacis as a pointer into that longer arc of development rather than as a stable, well-defined office.
American colonial and early state practice sometimes transplanted analogous offices under comparable names, but the Latin form clericus pacis is predominantly a feature of English and Anglo-Latin legal sources. Researchers working in American materials will rarely encounter the Latin designation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary does not offer a substantive definition under the Latin entry. Both appearances of the term in Bouvier's function as cross-references or brief glosses rather than full treatments: one directs the reader to see "Clerk of" (i.e., Clerk of the Peace), and the other identifies the officer as one appointed by the county in old English law. Bouvier's approach reflects the standard nineteenth-century American law dictionary practice of entering Latin terms as pointers to their English equivalents rather than duplicating content.
The thinness of coverage in the available historical dictionary sources is itself informative: by Bouvier's era the Latin form was largely a term of art found in historical and antiquarian legal writing rather than in active American legal practice. Researchers needing substantive treatment of the office's duties, history, and jurisdiction should look beyond dictionary sources to English legal histories and commentaries on the justices of the peace.
Jurisdictional Note
The office of Clerk of the Peace, and consequently the term clericus pacis, is a distinctly English institution rooted in the English quarter sessions system. It has no direct American federal counterpart. Some American states established analogous offices in the colonial and early national periods, but the Latin designation is not standard in American legal usage.