Definition
DIMISSOR has two distinct meanings in historical legal usage, both now obsolete in modern practice:
1. In old English law: A lessor — that is, the person who grants a lease or demise of property to another. The term derives from the Latin dimittere, meaning to demise or let out, and names the granting party in a leasehold relationship.
2. In the civil law: The issuing authority in the phrase dimissoriae litterae (letters dimissory), designating the tribunal or officer who sends a case or party forward to another court or jurisdiction by issuing apostles. In this sense, the dimissor is not a party to a property transaction but rather an official actor in appellate or ecclesiastical procedure.
Common Confusion
The two meanings of DIMISSOR are contextually distinct but superficially linked by the shared Latin root. A researcher encountering the term in an English common law record should read it as a lessor in a property or ejectment context. The same term appearing in civil law, ecclesiastical court, or Roman law sources almost certainly refers to the issuing authority of letters dimissory. Conflating these meanings will produce misreadings in both directions. See also APOSTLES / APOSTOLI, which is the related procedural instrument in the civil law sense.
Why It Matters in Research
DIMISSOR is a term of the historical record only. It does not appear in modern statutes, restatements, or current common law doctrine. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in one of two settings:
In property and ejectment materials, DIMISSOR appears as the formal Latin designation for the lessor in fictional and real ejectment actions in English law. Early common law pleading required identification of the parties in precise technical terms, and dimissor named the granting party in the demise that formed the basis of an ejectment claim. Sources predating the abolition of the forms of action — including Fleta and early English pleading manuals — use this term with some regularity.
In civil law and ecclesiastical court sources, DIMISSOR connects to the procedure of apostoli (apostles), the letters issued by a lower tribunal transmitting a record to a higher court on appeal. Here the term identifies not a person in a property relationship but the court or officer performing the act of transmission. This usage belongs primarily to Roman law, canon law, and admiralty sources drawing on civilian tradition.
Corpus researchers should flag DIMISSOR as a term that signals two entirely different procedural worlds depending on context. The risk of misreading is real: a term that looks like a party designation in one body of law is a jurisdictional act by an institution in another.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the primary reference. Burrill correctly distinguishes the two senses — lessor in old English law, issuing authority in the civil law — and cites Fleta, lib. 3, c. 12, § 7 for the English property meaning, and Dig. 50.16.106 for the civil law usage. Burrill also notes the common name for dimissoriae litterae, namely apostles (apostoli), and cross-references that entry directly.
The entry is compact and technical, as expected for a term this narrow. Burrill does not elaborate on the procedural mechanics of either usage, treating the term as a known reference point for trained practitioners rather than an explanatory entry for the uninitiated. Researchers needing the procedural context for dimissoriae litterae will need to pursue the apostoli entry and underlying civilian sources independently. No meaningful divergence among historical sources is apparent; the term is consistent in both meanings across the sources that record it.
Jurisdictional Note
The English law meaning is confined to pre-reform common law practice and is of historical relevance only to English and early American jurisdictions that inherited English forms of ejectment. The civil law meaning operates within Roman, canon, and ecclesiastical court traditions and is not part of the common law inheritance. Modern American and English law has no equivalent technical usage for either sense.