Definition
De statu probanda (Latin: "for proving [one's] state" or "for proving age") is a historical common law writ used to summon a jury for the purpose of determining whether the heir of a tenant in capite had reached full age and was therefore entitled to claim his estate. The writ initiated a formal inquest into the heir's age, which was a threshold question governing when the lord's wardship over the heir's lands would terminate and the heir could take possession of the inheritance.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow procedural writ tied entirely to the feudal land tenure system — specifically to the relationship between tenants in capite (those holding land directly of the Crown) and the Crown's rights of wardship and relief. Researchers encountering this term will almost certainly find it only in early English common law materials, Year Books, or treatises on real property and feudal tenure. It has no modern analogue and no meaningful American legal history. The writ reflects the feudal reality that wardship was a valuable proprietary right of the lord, and that an heir's age was not merely biographical fact but a legal and economic flashpoint. Sources referencing this writ should be read alongside materials on wardship, primer seisin, and livery of seisin to understand its procedural context. The term appears in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium and the Registrum Omnium Brevium, both foundational reference works for early English writ practice — researchers should consult those sources directly for procedural detail. Do not expect this term to appear in American digests or post-feudal English law sources; it effectively disappears from active legal use following the abolition of military tenures by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) defines the writ as one "which formerly lay to summon a jury in order to determine the age of the heir of a tenant in capite who claimed his estate as being of full age," citing Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium and the Registrum Originum. The entry is spare but accurate in its essentials. What historical dictionaries do not elaborate is the substantive significance of the age determination: under feudal tenure, if the heir was found to be under age, the lord (or the Crown, in the case of tenants in capite) retained wardship over both the body and the lands of the heir, extracting revenues until majority was established. The writ was therefore not merely administrative — it was the procedural gateway to recovering one's inheritance. No American legal dictionary substantively treats this term, which reflects its complete obsolescence outside historical legal scholarship.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was exclusively an English common law instrument tied to feudal tenure doctrine. It has no application in American law and is absent from any U.S. jurisdiction. Researchers in English legal history should situate it within the pre-1660 tenure framework.