Definition
Collatione heremitagii (also rendered De Collatione Heremitagii) is a Latin writ of the English common law directed to the granting or bestowal of a hermitage upon a petitioner. The writ concerned the collation — that is, the formal conferral or appointment — of a hermitage, which in medieval ecclesiastical and property practice was a small dwelling or cell assigned to a hermit, typically attached to or within the gift of a religious house, a lord, or the Crown. The writ operated within the intersection of ecclesiastical patronage and temporal property rights, governing who held authority to bestow such a living and on what terms.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is sparse but signals two legally relevant propositions: first, that the writ carried implications for the power to sell lands associated with a hermitage; and second, that a writ of prohibition would not lie to challenge proceedings under it — meaning that a common law court could not intervene by prohibition to halt the relevant ecclesiastical or administrative process.
Common Language
This section is omitted. Collatione heremitagii is pure legal Latin with no meaningful counterpart in modern ordinary English. "Hermitage" in common usage refers to a place of solitude or a retreat, but that usage carries none of the legal or ecclesiastical property significance of the term as used in this writ.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter this writ almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English common law sources and abridgments. Several navigational points deserve attention.
First, the writ belongs to a family of writs governing ecclesiastical collation and patronage — the process by which livings, benefices, and similar positions were formally conferred. Researchers working on advowson, presentment, or ecclesiastical property rights will find collatione heremitagii on the margins of that literature, not at its center.
Second, the significance of the prohibition point — that a writ of prohibition would not lie — is a doctrinal marker. Prohibition was the primary common law mechanism for restraining ecclesiastical courts from exceeding their jurisdiction. A ruling that prohibition would not lie indicated either that the matter was considered properly within ecclesiastical or Crown competence, or that the subject matter fell outside the reach of the common law supervisory function. Researchers tracing the boundary between temporal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in English legal history should note this signal carefully.
Third, the land-sale implication noted in Rapalje & Lawrence (citing 6 Wheaton, a United States Supreme Court reporter volume) is unexpected and warrants caution. A citation to Wheaton in the context of a medieval English writ likely reflects either an analogical use of the term in an American property or ecclesiastical case, or a secondary reference. Researchers should not assume the writ had direct American legal operation; the citation may illustrate a principle about collation or ecclesiastical grants rather than the writ itself.
Fourth, the term is largely absent from modern legal practice and has no operative significance in contemporary American or English law. Its research value is historical and definitional — useful for reading and interpreting older English treatises, abridgments, Year Books, and ecclesiastical court records.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence provide the only source entry available here, and it is notably compressed: the entry gestures at two propositions (land-sale power and the prohibition rule) without extended explanation. This brevity is consistent with the writ's status as a peripheral and archaic form even by the late nineteenth century when Rapalje & Lawrence compiled their dictionary.
Older English abridgments — Fitzherbert, Rolle, Viner — would be the natural hunting ground for fuller treatment of this writ and its procedural history. The prohibition point in particular suggests that the writ was litigated or at minimum contested at some point, producing the doctrinal conclusion that common law courts would not interfere. What historical sources collectively miss is any sustained treatment of the writ's practical frequency or the circumstances under which hermitages were actually contested property in English legal proceedings.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is a creature of English common law and ecclesiastical practice. It has no recognized analog in American statutory or common law. The Rapalje & Lawrence citation to a Wheaton reporter volume may reflect an American court's engagement with a related principle, but the writ itself did not transplant to American legal practice.