Definition
An ancient common law writ by which the king commanded the justices in eyre to admit a claimant's appearance by attorney. The writ was directed specifically to situations where the claimant was engaged in royal service and therefore unable to appear in person before the itinerant justices. Because personal appearance was ordinarily required in eyre proceedings, the writ functioned as a royal dispensation allowing a substitute—an attorney—to stand in the claimant's place and pursue the matter on their behalf.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a historical artifact, relevant almost exclusively to researchers working in medieval English legal records, plea rolls, and registers of writs. Several points bear attention:
The writ belongs to the procedural world of the eyre system, which operated in England from roughly the twelfth century until it fell into disuse by the mid-fourteenth century. Any document containing this term dates the researcher to that period; encountering it in later sources signals either a historical survey or transcription of earlier material.
The phrase "ere per attornatum" is a compressed Latin form and may appear with variant spellings or spacing in manuscript sources. Researchers working in original records should be alert to scribal variation. The term is sometimes rendered as a single compound phrase and sometimes broken across lines or abbreviated.
The reference in Rapalje & Lawrence to "Reg. Orig. 19" points to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, the historical English register of writs. Researchers seeking the writ in its original form should consult that source rather than relying on secondary summaries. The register was a working document of the English chancery and provides the authoritative form of the writ.
The connection between this writ and the broader development of attorney practice is worth flagging for legal historians. The writ illustrates an early and narrow exception to the personal appearance requirement—one grounded not in general right but in royal favor. The modern right of parties to appear by counsel has entirely different foundations and should not be read backward onto this writ's significance.
Researchers should be cautious about Black's Law Dictionary's truncated entry, which omits the critical qualifier present in Rapalje & Lawrence: the claimant's inability to appear derived specifically from engagement in royal service. This context is essential to understanding what the writ was and was not. It was not a general dispensation for convenience; it was a royal accommodation for those serving the crown.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's and Rapalje & Lawrence agree on the core definition: an ancient writ commanding justices in eyre to admit an attorney's appearance on behalf of an absent claimant. Rapalje & Lawrence supplies the more complete account, specifying that the claimant's absence was due to royal service and providing the Registrum Omnium Brevium citation that anchors the writ in primary source material.
Black's entry is notably compressed and includes what appears to be a typographical artifact ("ancient M writ"), likely a corruption of "ancient" or "memorial" writ in the original typesetting. Researchers relying solely on Black's would miss the royal service context that defines the writ's scope and purpose.
Neither source provides extended commentary on the writ's procedural mechanics or its relationship to other eyre-era writs, which reflects the writ's narrow and obsolete character. Historical dictionaries of English law, including those of the nineteenth century, treat it as a curiosity of the earlier system rather than a term with ongoing doctrinal significance.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively English in origin and has no counterpart in American law. It belongs to the pre-modern English court system and carries no relevance to any contemporary jurisdiction. Researchers in American legal history will not encounter it except in comparative or historical surveys of attorney practice.