Definition
A historical common law writ that provided relief to a tenant or landowner who had been distrained — that is, had property seized — for the full amount of a rent obligation that was properly owed by multiple parties in proportionate shares. The writ compelled the distraining party to seek satisfaction from each obligor in proportion to their respective share of the burden, rather than collecting the whole from a single party.
In practical terms: where several persons held land under a common obligation to pay rent, and one among them was distrained for the entire sum, this writ lay to discharge that person from liability for the portions rightfully owed by the others. It was a remedy rooted in equity of burden — the principle that a shared obligation should fall on each party only to the extent of their proportionate share.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal materials — writs registers, Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, and glossaries derived from Termes de la Ley. Researchers encountering it in historical documents should treat it as a marker of the old English distraint system, which operated very differently from modern landlord-tenant and debt enforcement mechanisms.
The writ belongs to a family of archaic writs addressing apportionment and contribution among co-obligors. Researchers working on the history of contribution, suretyship, or joint tenancy obligations will find this writ contextually relevant, even if the form itself is long obsolete. It illustrates an early procedural mechanism for what equity would later handle through contribution claims and what modern law addresses through contract and statutory apportionment doctrines.
Do not expect to find this writ in American legal sources. It did not transplant into colonial or early American practice in any meaningful way. Its appearance in American legal dictionaries like Black's is purely genealogical — retained for historical completeness, not because it reflected active American practice even at the time of publication.
When researching historical distress actions, be alert to the fact that Black's 2nd Edition (and its supplemental material) often preserves writ names in variant spellings. The hyphenated rendering "Por-Tionis" in the supplemental entry appears to be a typographic artifact of the source; the correct Latin form is portionis, the genitive of portio (share or portion). Variant spellings in historical indexes should not be treated as separate writs.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) Supplemental defines the writ tersely: it lay where one was distrained for rent that ought to be paid by others proportionably with him. The entry cites Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium at folio 234 and Termes de la Ley, both foundational authorities on the medieval English writ system.
Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (first published 1534) is the primary English-language treatise organizing and explaining the forms of original writs available in the common law courts. Its treatment of this writ confirms the apportionment rationale: the burden of a shared rent charge should not fall entirely on one co-tenant simply because that party was the one distrained. Termes de la Ley, the early English legal glossary, similarly preserves the writ among its catalog of remedies associated with land tenure and feudal obligations.
No substantive divergence among historical sources is apparent; the writ was sufficiently obscure even in its own era that treatment across authorities is thin and consistent. What historical sources collectively miss is any developed doctrine of how proportionate shares were calculated in disputed cases — the writ's existence is well-attested, its internal mechanics less so.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was a creature of English common law with no surviving American counterpart. Modern apportionment among co-obligors is governed by contract law, contribution doctrine, and — in landlord-tenant contexts — statutory frameworks that vary by jurisdiction.