Definition
De transgressione is a Latin phrase meaning "of trespass" or "concerning a trespass." In English legal procedure, it designates a writ of trespass — that is, a formal written command issued out of a common law court directing that a defendant answer for a wrongful act committed against a plaintiff. The phrase functioned as a label or heading identifying the nature of the writ rather than as a standalone legal doctrine. It appears principally in the Register of Originals (Registrum Originale or Reg. Orig.) as the classifier for writs sounding in trespass.
The writ de transgressione was the procedural vehicle through which a party initiated a trespass action in the common law courts. It was among the foundational writs of the English original writ system, by which a plaintiff secured the king's authority to compel a defendant into court. Without such a writ, no common law action could proceed.
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Common Confusion
De transgressione should not be confused with the broader category of trespass as a substantive legal concept. The phrase is procedural and classificatory — it names the writ form, not the underlying tort. A researcher encountering "de transgressione" in a historical source is looking at writ mechanics, not a statement of trespass doctrine. The substantive law of trespass (vi et armis, trespass on the case, trespass to land, etc.) is a separate body of learning that developed alongside and through these writs.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a historical and procedural artifact. Researchers will encounter it in:
1. REGISTER OF ORIGINALS AND PLEADING FORMS: Reg. Orig. 92 is the cited locus in all three source dictionaries. Researchers working with the Registrum Originale or with early English pleading manuals will find de transgressione as a chapter or section heading classifying the trespass writs collected there. Understanding it as an organizational marker — rather than a term of art carrying substantive legal content — is essential to reading those sources correctly.
2. HISTORICAL PLEADING AND WRIT PRACTICE: The original writ system was abolished in England by the Common Law Procedure Acts of the nineteenth century and was never replicated in American practice in its full form. References to de transgressione in American sources are therefore either historical commentary or direct quotation from English authorities. A researcher should not expect to find the phrase in nineteenth-century American case law as a live procedural term.
3. CORPUS CONNECTIONS — TRESPASS FAMILY: De transgressione is the entry point into a large and consequential writ family. The common law writ of trespass (vi et armis) — the direct ancestor of modern battery, assault, false imprisonment, and forcible trespass to land — issued under this heading. Trespass on the case, which eventually gave rise to negligence and nuisance doctrine, was a derivative and distinct writ, but understanding the original de transgressione writ is necessary context for tracing that evolution.
4. TRUNCATED DICTIONARY ENTRIES: Both Black's editions and Rapalje & Lawrence show "DE TRANSGRESSIONE, AD AU-" following the main entry, indicating that the printed dictionaries continued with a compound or extended form (likely "de transgressione ad audiendum et terminandum" or similar) that was cut off in the available source material. Researchers should consult the full printed text of these dictionaries when tracing extended writ forms under this heading.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in complete agreement on the core definition: de transgressione means "a writ of trespass," with Reg. Orig. 92 as the shared citation anchor. This unanimity reflects the term's status as settled historical vocabulary rather than contested doctrine.
Black's first edition offers the most compressed entry: "trespass. Reg. Orig. 92." Black's second edition and Rapalje & Lawrence add only the opening phrase "A writ of trespass" — a slight expansion that confirms the translational meaning without adding doctrinal content.
What all three sources omit is any discussion of the writ's mechanics, its relationship to trespass vi et armis versus trespass on the case, or the procedural consequences of proceeding under one form versus another. For that material, researchers must go to treatise literature — Blackstone's Commentaries, Chitty's Treatise on Pleading, or Stephen's Principles of Pleading — where the practical operation of original writs in trespass is addressed at length.
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Jurisdictional Note
De transgressione is an English common law term with no surviving procedural function in any American or modern English jurisdiction. American courts replaced the original writ system with code pleading (beginning with the Field Code in New York, 1848) and later with notice pleading under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The term has only historical and comparative relevance in any current jurisdiction.
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