Definition
A writ of right of advowson. A common law writ that lay in favor of a person who held an advowson in fee simple — that is, an inheritable right to present a candidate to a church benefice — when that person was disturbed in the exercise of that right of presentation. The writ restored the plaintiff to the legal right of presentation where a dispute had arisen over who held the advowson. It was a real action, concerned not with a temporary interference but with the fundamental question of who possessed the freehold right to nominate a clergyman to a vacant ecclesiastical living. The writ was abolished by the Real Property Limitation Act, 3 & 4 William IV, c. 27 (1833), which swept away most ancient real actions along with their associated limitation periods.
Common Confusion
De recto de advocatione should not be confused with the quare impedit or the darrein presentment, which addressed related but distinct grievances. Quare impedit was a more flexible and commonly used action that lay when a patron was disturbed in a specific act of presentation; it became the dominant remedy for advowson disputes in later practice. Darrein presentment asked who last presented to the benefice, functioning as an assize rather than a writ of right. De recto de advocatione was the highest-grade action — a writ of right — which meant it went to the root of title and was the proper form when the plaintiff sought to establish the ultimate freehold interest in the advowson itself, not merely recover a lost turn of presentation.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
The writ was also known by its French-influenced form le droit de advocatione, as noted in Bouvier. It belonged to the broader family of writs of right (brevia de recto), which were the strongest real actions at common law and required trial by grand assize or battle rather than by jury in the ordinary sense.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter this term almost exclusively in pre-1833 English legal materials. Its practical importance in the Law Mind corpus lies in three areas. First, it appears in older ecclesiastical law research when tracing the history of advowson disputes and the development of patronage law in England. Second, it is a useful marker of procedural era: the presence of this writ in a source confirms pre-Victorian practice, since abolition in 1833 was comprehensive. Third, researchers working through Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium or the Register of Original Writs (Registrum Omnium Brevium) will encounter it in its natural habitat — these formulary sources shaped how practitioners understood the writ for centuries. Because the writ required proof of fee simple seisin in the advowson, not merely a right to a single presentation, it had a higher evidentiary threshold than quare impedit, which explains why the latter displaced it in everyday litigation well before formal abolition. Any research touching on the legal status of church livings, lay patronage, or the relationship between common law courts and ecclesiastical jurisdiction will benefit from understanding where this writ sat in the hierarchy of remedies.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core substance: the writ lay to restore the right of presentation to a benefice in favor of one holding an advowson in fee simple who had been disturbed. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier identify the governing plea roll authority as Registrum Originalium (Reg. Orig. 29b) and cite Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (Nat. Brev. 30, B) as the principal practitioner authority. Bouvier alone adds the Year Book citation (39 Hen., left incomplete in the original) and supplies the alternative Latin and French nomenclature. Rapalje & Lawrence give the leanest treatment, pointing only to Fitzherbert without elaboration.
The dictionaries are uniformly silent on one important point: by the time these reference works were compiled in the nineteenth century, the writ had already been abolished for decades. None of the entries discusses the practical obsolescence of the action before abolition, which was substantial — quare impedit had long been preferred in practice. Researchers should treat these entries as historical records of a defunct remedy rather than as guides to living procedure.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was a creature of English common law and had no meaningful transplant into American colonial or early republic practice, because the Church of England's system of advowsons and benefices did not establish itself in American legal culture. Researchers will not find this writ in American casebooks or statutes; its relevance is confined to English legal history and to comparative ecclesiastical law research.