Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "for the expenses of knights not to be levied" (or "of not levying the expenses of knights"). De expensis militum non levandis was a writ in English legal history directed at preventing or restraining the collection of wages or expenses assessed upon a county or constituency for the support of its knights of the shire — the representatives sent to Parliament. In medieval and early modern England, knights elected to attend Parliament were entitled to compensation from the inhabitants of the county they represented, and this writ provided a legal mechanism to contest or halt such levies.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to the specialized vocabulary of English writ practice and early parliamentary procedure, and it will appear almost exclusively in historical English sources — treatises on writs, abridgments, and records of the medieval and early modern common law courts. Researchers encountering this phrase in a manuscript, register of writs, or legal abridgment should understand it as part of the broader system of parliamentary wages, a practice that was genuinely operative from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries and fell into disuse as parliamentary service came to be unpaid and eventually sought rather than avoided.
The key navigational point: this writ sits at the intersection of two bodies of research that are often treated separately — the law of writs on one hand and the history of parliamentary representation on the other. A researcher approaching from the writ-practice angle may find it catalogued alongside other fiscal and process writs; a researcher approaching from parliamentary history may encounter it in discussions of the obligations of county electors and the rights of elected members. Neither body of literature alone is likely to give a complete picture.
Because the writ is identified by its Latin incipit, variant spellings and abbreviations appear frequently in historical sources. The phrase is sometimes truncated to de expensis militum or rendered with different word order in abridgments and registers. Burrill's entry is fragmentary in the source material available, with the text cutting off mid-description — a reminder that consulting multiple abridgments and the original Registers of Writs (Registrum Brevium) is essential for full treatment.
The writ also illuminates a largely forgotten aspect of early parliamentary law: that attendance in Parliament was, for much of the medieval period, treated as a burden rather than a privilege, and that the mechanisms for funding representatives were matters of legal enforcement, not mere custom. This context is important for correctly reading documents in which county communities resisted or disputed parliamentary levies.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary includes this term, though the available source text is fragmentary — the entry appears to trail off before completing a full description. The Latin phrase is self-explaining to a degree: expensis (expenses), militum (of knights, genitive plural of miles in its parliamentary sense of knight of the shire), non levandis (not to be levied, gerundive construction indicating purpose or restraint). Burrill's treatment, consistent with his practice for writ-form entries, appears to have catalogued the phrase as a named writ identified by its opening words, in the manner of the Registrum Brevium tradition.
Older English legal dictionaries and abridgments — Rastell, Termes de la Ley, Jacob's Law Dictionary, and Tomlin's Law Dictionary — are the natural secondary sources for filling gaps left by Burrill's truncated entry. The writ is also discussed in the context of early parliamentary history by scholars working from the Close Rolls and Parliament Rolls, where actual enforcement of parliamentary wages can be traced. Historical legal dictionaries of the nineteenth century and earlier generally treat the term briefly, as an obsolete writ of limited practical interest to their contemporary readers, without engaging its parliamentary-history dimensions.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is specific to English legal history and has no direct equivalent in other common law jurisdictions. It has no operative relevance in modern law anywhere. Its significance is entirely historical and archival.