Definition
De ponendo sigillum ad exceptionem (Latin: "for putting a seal to an exception") is a historical common law writ directing justices to affix their official seal to a formal exception taken by a party in a pending suit. The writ was issued when a litigant had raised an exception — that is, a formal objection to a ruling or procedural matter — and needed the court's authenticated record of that exception to preserve it for review or appeal. By compelling the justices to seal the exception, the writ ensured the objection became part of the official record and could not later be disputed or ignored.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a matter of historical legal procedure and will appear, if at all, in pre-modern English common law sources, register of writs collections, and early treatises on English practice. Researchers encountering this writ in historical records should understand it as belonging to the broader apparatus of formal exception-taking that preceded modern appellate procedure. The underlying function — preserving a party's objection for higher review — survives in modern practice through entirely different procedural mechanisms, including the requirement to make timely objections on the record in trial proceedings.
The reference to Reg. orig. 182 points to the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Register of Original Writs), a foundational compilation of standard writ forms used in English common law courts. Researchers working with the Register should note that writ nomenclature and numbering varied across manuscript versions and printed editions; locating the precise form may require consulting multiple editions. This writ will not appear in American legal sources in any operative sense, as the formal writ system was not transplanted to American jurisdictions.
Researchers should also note that this writ functioned as a compulsory instrument — it was directed at the justices themselves, not at opposing parties. This reflects the medieval common law's reliance on prerogative writs to discipline court officers and maintain the regularity of the record, a concept with instructive parallels to modern mandamus practice.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides the only entry recovered from the source shelf. Black's definition is brief and accurate: the writ commanded justices to put their seals to exceptions taken by a party, citing Reg. orig. 182 as authority. No further elaboration is offered, and no other shelf source addresses this term. The brevity of the historical record is itself informative — this was a narrow, procedural instrument with a specific and limited function, not a term that generated significant doctrinal commentary. Historical dictionaries generally treat it as a form entry rather than a subject of legal analysis.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is a creature of English common law and has no recognized counterpart in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions. It is relevant only to research into historical English court practice, primarily before the procedural reforms of the nineteenth century.