Definition
Close writs (also called "writs close") were sealed royal letters in English law used to convey private commands or grants from the Crown to particular persons for particular purposes. Unlike open writs — which were intended for public inspection and bore the royal seal hanging visibly from a strip of parchment — close writs were folded and sealed on the outside, concealing their contents from anyone other than the intended recipient.
The term encompasses two related but distinct uses:
1. Private royal grants or commands. Letters from the king directed to named individuals, closed and sealed so that their contents remained private. These were not proclamations or instruments of general application; they were personal, directed communications.
2. Writs directed to the sheriff rather than to a lord. In the context of the feudal court structure, close writs signaled a shift in royal administration — routing certain royal commands through the sheriff (a royal officer) instead of through the lord of a manor or franchise. This reflected the gradual centralization of English legal process under the Crown.
Common Confusion
Close writs are frequently confused with open writs (litterae patentes, or letters patent). The distinction is physical and functional: open writs were left unsealed, publicly displayed, and intended for general notice — the sovereign's communication to the world. Close writs were sealed shut, privately addressed, and intended only for the named recipient. A researcher encountering references to "letters close" or "litterae clausae" in historical sources is encountering the same instrument under an alternate name.
Close writs should also be distinguished from writs generally. Not all royal writs were close writs. The writ system encompassed dozens of forms — original writs, judicial writs, prerogative writs — most of which were open instruments. Close writs are a specific subcategory defined by their sealed, private character.
Why It Matters in Research
Close writs are a term of pure historical English law. No modern American jurisdiction uses this term in practice, and no contemporary procedural system employs the close writ as an operative instrument. Researchers will encounter the term almost exclusively in:
- Historical treatises and commentaries on English common law, particularly materials drawn from Blackstone's Commentaries and Reeve's History of English Law.
- Research into the development of the English writ system and the administrative transition from feudal to royal governance.
- Colonial-era American legal materials that tracked English forms closely.
The two-part definition in the historical dictionaries — private royal grants on the one hand, writs to sheriffs on the other — is not as contradictory as it may appear. Both meanings reflect the same underlying concept: a private, directed royal communication sealed against public view. The second meaning (writs to sheriffs) is the more historically significant for legal historians, as it documents the erosion of the lord's jurisdictional role and the rise of the sheriff as the Crown's primary local administrative agent.
Note that Bouvier cites "3 Reeve" while Black's cites "8 Reeve" for the same proposition. This discrepancy likely reflects different editions of Reeve's History of English Law; researchers should verify the edition in use when tracking down citations.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in substantive agreement on this term. Both trace close writs to the same primary authorities — Blackstone's Commentaries Book II and Sewell (or Sewall) on Sheriffs — and both preserve the dual character of the term. Neither dictionary suggests any surviving modern legal application.
Bouvier's framing is slightly more precise: it emphasizes that close writs were "not intended for public inspection" as the operative reason for their sealed form, directly contrasting them with open letters. Black's is more succinct. Neither source discusses the procedural mechanics of how close writs were issued, transmitted, or enforced, which limits their utility beyond identification of the term.
Blackstone's treatment (2 Bl. Comm. 346) remains the most accessible primary source for understanding the distinction between close writs and letters patent in their historical context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Coram Nobis and Other Extraordinary Writs (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia, criminal_240) — for broader historical and procedural context on the English writ system.