Definition
A writ in English law directing the removal of a coroner from office upon a cause assigned within the writ itself. Recognized grounds for removal included engagement in other business that prevented proper discharge of duties, incapacity by reason of age or sickness, insufficient estate in the county, or residence in an inconvenient part of the county. Later English legislation expanded the recognized causes to include extortion, neglect, and misbehavior in office.
The writ belongs to the category of prerogative writs used to regulate the tenure and conduct of public officers. Its function was not punitive but administrative: to relieve a coroner of office when continued service had become impractical or improper, with the cause stated on the face of the writ rather than established through adversarial proceedings.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a historical English writ with no direct American successor. Researchers encountering the term in colonial-era American materials, early common law digests, or English legal history should treat it as a window into the original structure of the coroner's office rather than a live procedural mechanism.
The writ's existence signals a key feature of early coroner tenure: the office was not held at pleasure in the modern administrative sense, nor was removal governed by a general removal statute, but rather by a specific writ that required the assigning of cause. This has implications for understanding how coroner accountability was framed in historical English law — and why early American jurisdictions, when they adapted the coroner's office, had to build new removal mechanisms from scratch.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should note that Burrill's entry redirects to DE CORONATORE EXONERANDO, indicating the fuller treatment appears under the Latin prepositional form. The two forms refer to the same writ; corpus searches should run both variants. Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence carry the substantive description. Bouvier's entry is a bare summary.
The statutory references in Rapalje & Lawrence — 25 Geo. II c. 29 and 23 & 24 Vict. c. 116 — are real English statutes and represent the primary legislative development of the writ's grounds for removal. Researchers working on English coroner law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should consult these statutes directly; the dictionary entries alone do not capture the full statutory scheme.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: a writ for removal of a coroner for cause assigned within the writ. The sources diverge in depth. Bouvier provides only the bare description. Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence are substantively similar, both listing the enumerated grounds — other business, age or sickness, insufficient estate, inconvenient residence — and referencing the expansion of grounds under 25 Geo. II. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the further Victorian-era statutory reference (23 & 24 Vict. c. 116), making it the most complete account for researchers interested in the writ's later history.
Burrill's treatment is fragmentary as reproduced, redirecting to the fuller entry under the prepositional form. The surrounding text in Burrill's entry, touching the coroner's ministerial duties and reference to Bracton and Britton, is context for the broader CORONER entry rather than for this writ specifically.
None of the historical dictionaries address the writ's procedural mechanics in detail — who initiated it, to which court it was returnable, or what notice if any was given to the coroner. For those questions, researchers must go to primary English sources.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is specific to English law. American jurisdictions did not receive it as part of the common law inheritance in any operative sense; removal of coroners in the United States is governed by state statutes and constitutional provisions that vary considerably by jurisdiction.