Definition
De leproso amovendo (Latin: "for removing a leper") is an ancient common law writ directing the removal of a person afflicted with leprosy who intruded into the company of neighbors — in public or private places — to their annoyance and disturbance. The writ empowered authorities to compel the leper's separation from the general community. It belongs to the broader category of prerogative and regulatory writs through which English common law courts managed public order and nuisance conditions affecting the community.
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Common Confusion
De leproso amovendo is sometimes loosely grouped with nuisance writs or public health orders in historical discussion, but it operated as a distinct writ with its own form and purpose. It should not be conflated with general nuisance abatement proceedings or with writs directed at the management of a leper's property and legal capacity, which raised separate questions about civil disability under medieval law. The writ addressed physical removal from company, not legal incompetence or property forfeiture.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is an archaic writ of exclusively historical significance. No American jurisdiction has employed de leproso amovendo, and it fell into complete desuetude well before modern public health statutes displaced the common law framework for managing communicable disease. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in:
1. Historical surveys of English prerogative writs and the Register of Original Writs (Registrum Omnium Brevium), where it appears as one of the more unusual entries among writs dealing with physical or social disability.
2. Studies of medieval and early modern attitudes toward disease, disability, and legal personhood, where the writ illustrates how the common law mediated between individual movement and community protection long before germ theory or statutory public health regimes.
3. Comparative legal history examining the transition from writ-based remedies to legislative and administrative public health frameworks in the nineteenth century.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should be aware that historical dictionary entries for this writ are brief and formulaic, drawn almost entirely from the same thin cluster of sources — principally Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium and the Registrum Omnium Brevium. Neither Black's first nor second edition adds substantive commentary beyond the writ's basic function. If deeper research is needed, the primary sources themselves (Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 234, E; Reg. Orig. 267; New Nat. Brev. 521) remain the essential references. Secondary literature on medieval English leprosy law and the legal status of lepers provides essential context that no legal dictionary entry supplies.
One research trap: the second edition entry in the Law Mind corpus appears to contain a fragmentary artifact — the phrase "the tenant, to the injury of the reversioner" preceding the writ description — suggesting a typesetting or digitization error that blended text from an adjacent entry. Researchers should not treat this phrase as part of the de leproso amovendo definition.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's first and second editions define de leproso amovendo identically in substance: a writ to remove a leper who thrust himself into the company of neighbors in public or private places, to their annoyance. Both cite the same three sources — Reg. Orig. 267, Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 234 E, and New Nat. Brev. 521 — without variation or elaboration. Neither edition situates the writ historically, discusses its procedural mechanics, or notes its obsolescence.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is significant: they are silent on who could bring the writ, before what court it was returnable, what showing was required to establish that the leper's presence constituted the requisite "annoyance," and what enforcement mechanism followed. The writ's relationship to the broader medieval legal treatment of leprosy — including questions of legal capacity, marriage, inheritance, and civil death — goes entirely unaddressed. Researchers relying solely on these dictionary entries will have the writ's name and a one-sentence description, nothing more.
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Jurisdictional Note
De leproso amovendo was a writ of English common law and has no recognized counterpart or application in American, Canadian, or other common law jurisdictions. Modern public health law in all jurisdictions addresses communicable disease control through statute and administrative regulation, entirely superseding any common law writ tradition in this area.
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