Definition
A writ available at common law to a patron whose right of advowson had been violated. Specifically, it lay where a person held the right to present a candidate to a vacant church living (the advowson), the incumbent parson died, and a stranger — someone with no legal right — presented a candidate in the patron's place. The writ enabled the rightful patron to assert that right of presentation against the interloper.
CLESLZ was thus a remedy within the body of common law actions protecting advowson rights, which were property rights in the ecclesiastical context: the right to nominate a clergyman to fill a vacant benefice, subject to the bishop's acceptance.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering CLESLZ in historical sources should understand that it belongs to a cluster of medieval common law writs governing advowson disputes, a category of litigation that was substantial in English legal practice before the Reformation dramatically altered the relationship between Crown, church, and lay patrons. By the time Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) was compiled, this writ had become a historical artifact — it reflects a system in which the right to present clergy to church livings was a valuable property interest that courts of common law actively protected.
The primary research trap is unfamiliarity with advowson law generally. Without understanding what an advowson is and why it generated common law remedies, CLESLZ will appear opaque. Researchers should approach it as one of several writs in the advowson cluster, alongside writs such as darrein presentment and quare impedit, which addressed overlapping but distinct fact patterns in presentation disputes.
The sole Black's Law Dictionary citation — Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 30 — refers to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, a foundational treatise on the forms of writs in English common law. This is a legitimate and historically significant source. Researchers seeking deeper exposition of the writ's operation should consult that work directly; Black's entry is skeletal and functional rather than analytical.
No modern American common law application of this writ exists. The established church structure that gave rise to advowson rights as enforceable property interests never transferred to American jurisdictions in operative form. This term is relevant exclusively to English legal history, to research touching ecclesiastical law, or to understanding the historical scope of common law writs.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) provides the only historical dictionary entry available for this term, and it is brief: a single sentence identifying the writ's occasion — vacancy by death of the parson and presentation by a stranger — and citing Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium at folio 30. The entry does not describe the writ's procedure, the relief available, or its relationship to other advowson writs.
Historical dictionaries broadly say very little about CLESLZ compared to the better-documented advowson writs. Quare impedit, for instance, received substantially more treatment in legal literature because it remained in use longer and was more frequently litigated. CLESLZ appears to represent an earlier or more specific procedural vehicle, with Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium being the authoritative source for its original scope and form.
Jurisdictional Note
CLESLZ has no operative jurisdiction in any modern legal system. It is a defunct common law writ of purely English origin, tied to an ecclesiastical property structure that did not survive either the Reformation in England or transplantation to American jurisdictions.