Definition
A written instrument — on paper or parchment — by which a defendant already held in custody is formally charged in execution at the suit of the plaintiff who arrested him, or of another plaintiff. The committitur piece operates as the procedural mechanism for converting a defendant's existing custodial status into a charge-in-execution, meaning the imprisonment becomes attributable to a specific judgment rather than merely to the original arrest or bail process. It takes its form from the bail-piece and functions as its counterpart in execution practice.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of English common law civil procedure with no surviving American equivalent. Researchers encountering it in historical sources — pleading records, practice manuals, or court papers from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century — should understand it as part of the now-obsolete machinery of imprisonment for debt and mesne process. Its appearance in a document signals that the underlying proceeding involved a defendant already in physical custody, and that a separate formal step was required to attach execution liability to that custody.
The term virtually disappears from American legal literature after the abolition of imprisonment for debt, which proceeded jurisdiction by jurisdiction through the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers working in American sources after roughly 1850 will rarely encounter it except in historical discussion. English sources retain it longer. When tracing a matter through English practice manuals, the committitur piece sits within a cluster of related instruments — bail-piece, cognovit, and surrender in discharge of bail — and should be read alongside the procedural rules governing each.
The Black's entry references Chitty's Archbold Practice (12th ed.), and Burrill cites Tidd's Practice. Both are reliable English civil practice authorities for the period. Researchers needing full procedural context should consult those sources directly; the dictionary entries compress what are detailed procedural steps in the originals.
One research trap: the Latin root committitur (he is committed) also appears in commitment orders and mittimus forms in criminal contexts. A committitur piece is strictly a civil execution instrument; conflating it with criminal commitment orders produces a significant analytical error.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core definition with near-identical language, suggesting common derivation from English practice authorities rather than independent analysis. Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence all describe it as a writing on paper or parchment charging a person already in prison in execution at the suit of the person who arrested him. Burrill adds the useful clarification that the executing plaintiff may be the same or a different plaintiff from the one who originally arrested the defendant, and grounds the definition in Tidd's Practice — the more detailed procedural authority. Burrill's version is the most precise for research purposes.
None of the four entries explains the procedural steps surrounding the instrument — when it was required, how it was filed, or what effect it had on the defendant's ongoing custody — limiting their utility beyond identification. For substantive procedural context, Tidd's Practice of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas (various editions) and Chitty's Archbold remain the primary sources.
The historical dictionaries treat this as an English law term without discussion of American adoption or adaptation, which accurately reflects its limited transplantation to American practice.
Jurisdictional Note
The committitur piece is a term of English civil practice. American jurisdictions that adopted elements of English execution procedure generally did not preserve this specific instrument in statutory or codified form, and its use was effectively extinguished in the United States alongside the abolition of imprisonment for debt.