Definition
A writ of exoneration from suit. De exoneratione secte was a writ that exempted a ward of the Crown from the obligation to attend or answer in inferior courts — specifically county courts, hundreds, leets, and courts-baron — for the duration of the wardship. The writ operated as a formal discharge, relieving the ward of the suit (secte) that would ordinarily be owed to those tribunals. Once wardship ended, the exemption ceased with it.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow historical writ of the English feudal system. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in pre-modern English common law sources — primarily in treatises on the forms of writs rather than in case reporters. It belongs to the category of prerogative writs connected to the Crown's feudal rights over wardship, and must be understood in that context.
The term "secte" (or suit) is the key operative word. In this period, suit of court — the obligation to attend and participate in local and feudal tribunals — was itself a property-like obligation tied to land tenure. The ward, whose affairs were managed by the Crown during minority, was granted relief from this burden as an incident of royal wardship. A researcher confusing this writ with writs of general exoneration or with the abolition of feudal tenure should note that de exoneratione secte operated within the feudal system, not against it.
This writ belongs to a cluster of writs found in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium and the New Natura Brevium — the primary reference points in both historical dictionary sources. Researchers working in pre-1660 English legal materials will find the writ discussed in treatise form rather than in reported decisions. After the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 eliminated military tenure and the Court of Wards, the conditions that gave rise to this writ ceased to exist in practice. It survives in legal dictionaries as a historical artifact rather than as a living form.
Corpus connections: Researchers working on wardship, feudal tenure, or the jurisdiction of inferior courts in medieval and early modern England should treat this writ as a navigational marker pointing toward the broader body of writ practice. It is unlikely to appear outside historical English sources and will not have American parallels.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in close agreement on this term. Both identify it as a writ tied to royal wardship and to the discharge of suit in inferior courts. Black's is slightly more specific, enumerating the types of courts affected — county court, hundred, leet, and court-baron — and cites Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (158) and the New Natura Brevium (352) as its authorities. Bouvier's frames it as exemption from any court lower than the Court of Common Pleas, which is a somewhat broader framing but consistent in substance.
Neither source provides extended analysis. Both treat the writ as a settled historical form requiring only brief identification. Neither addresses the abolition of the conditions underlying the writ, a gap researchers should fill by consulting the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 and secondary histories of the Court of Wards. The reference to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium is the most useful research pointer in either entry: that treatise remains the standard primary source for understanding the writ's procedural context and the circumstances of its issuance.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively English in origin and has no counterpart in American law. The feudal wardship system from which it arose was not transplanted to the American colonies in operative form, and no equivalent writ developed in any American jurisdiction.