Definition
De corrodio habendo (Latin: "for having a corody") was a common law writ used to compel a religious house — typically a monastery or priory — to provide a corody to a person legally entitled to one. A corody was an allowance of food, drink, lodging, or other necessaries, typically owed by a religious institution to a person who had endowed it or whose predecessor had done so, or who held some claim upon it by royal grant or private arrangement. The writ was the procedural mechanism by which that entitlement could be judicially enforced when the religious house refused or failed to render the due provision.
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Common Confusion
De corrodio habendo is closely tied to the substantive right it enforced — the corody — and the two are sometimes conflated in historical sources. The writ is the remedy; the corody is the underlying entitlement. Researchers encountering either term in historical records should consult both entries. A second source of confusion appears in Rapalje & Lawrence, which attributes to this writ a function related to bills of exchange — almost certainly a transcription error or compositorial blunder in that edition, as no other source supports that reading and it conflicts with the unanimous description elsewhere.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to a narrow but coherent cluster of medieval English ecclesiastical and property law. Researchers are unlikely to encounter de corrodio habendo in any context later than the mid-seventeenth century; the writ became effectively obsolete with the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, which eliminated the institutional defendants against whom it operated. Any appearance of this writ in post-Dissolution sources is almost certainly historical or antiquarian in nature rather than operative.
For corpus researchers, the primary utility of this entry is as a gateway term. The writ itself carries little independent doctrinal weight; its significance lies in what it connects to: the law of corodies, the obligations of religious houses to lay patrons and crown grantees, and the broader medieval framework of personal property rights in services and sustenance. Researchers tracing the history of annuities, pensions, or maintenance obligations in English law may find the corody and its associated writs useful as early precursors.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry contains an apparent error linking this writ to bills of exchange — a description that belongs to an entirely different writ. This is a trap for researchers relying on that source alone. Black's Law Dictionary in both editions is consistent and correct: this writ concerns corodies from religious houses, full stop.
The Register of Original Writs (Registrum Omnium Brevium, cited as Reg. Orig.) and Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (Fitzh. Nat. Brev.) are the foundational sources cited across all three dictionary entries. Both are available in early printed editions and are part of the standard corpus of medieval English procedural law.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in essential agreement, with one notable exception. Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) provides a consistent, brief definition: a writ to exact a corody from a religious house, with citations to Reg. Orig. 264 and Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 230. Rapalje & Lawrence gives the same core description and the same Register of Original Writs citation but adds a garbled clause referencing bills of exchange that is unsupported by any other authority and almost certainly represents a printing or editorial error in that volume. Neither edition of Black's acknowledges this secondary description, and no independent legal authority connects this writ to negotiable instruments law.
All three sources treat this as a purely referential entry, directing readers to the substantive term CORODY for fuller treatment. Historical dictionaries of this era routinely handled obsolete writs in this manner — minimal definition, procedural identification, cross-reference to the right being enforced. The brevity reflects the writ's obsolescence at the time these dictionaries were compiled, not uncertainty about its meaning.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Corody; Medieval English Ecclesiastical Property; Writs of the Register of Original Writs.
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