Definition
In old English practice, ESSONIO refers to the act or formula of essoining — that is, formally excusing a party from appearing in court. The term appears at the opening of the old essoining formula used in medieval English proceedings, marking the procedural moment at which an essoin (an excuse for non-appearance) was entered on the record. It derives from the verb "to essoin" and functions as the gerundive or participial form used in the Latin pleading formula commencing the excuse. As a technical term, it belongs entirely to the vocabulary of early common law procedure and has no practical application in modern courts.
Common Confusion
Burrill's entry for ESSONIO appears immediately adjacent to material concerning ESTABLISSEMENTS (ordinances or royal statutes), and the two entries are typographically compressed in some editions. Researchers scanning Burrill should take care not to conflate ESSONIO with the French and Latin terms relating to royal establishments or legislation. The proximity is editorial accident, not conceptual connection — essoins are procedural excuses; establissements are legislative acts.
Why It Matters in Research
ESSONIO is a term encountered almost exclusively in medieval English plea rolls, yearbooks, and early common law treatises such as Bracton. Researchers working in those sources need to understand that the term signals a discrete procedural moment: the formal entry of an excuse for non-appearance, typically grounded in illness, absence on royal service, or other recognized grounds. The essoining formula had strict requirements — the wrong form or an untimely essoin could be rejected, and repeated essoins were regulated by rules that evolved significantly across the twelfth through fourteenth centuries.
Several navigational traps exist in the historical corpus:
First, ESSONIO, ESSOIN, ESSOIGN, and ESSOYNE are all spelling variants referring to the same procedural concept. Latin records use forms such as essonium or essoniare; French records use essoigne. A corpus search limited to a single spelling will miss a substantial portion of relevant material.
Second, the procedural rules governing essoins changed materially between the reign of Henry II and the later medieval period. Early sources treat certain essoins as nearly absolute rights; later statutory and judicial regulation restricted both the number of permissible essoins and the acceptable grounds. A rule stated in Bracton may not accurately describe practice under Edward I or later.
Third, essoining practice was abolished in English procedure by the nineteenth-century reform statutes, so post-reform sources treat the term as a historical curiosity. Researchers using digests or encyclopedias from the Victorian period or later may find the term glossed over or described in terms that flatten the earlier procedural complexity.
Fourth, the connection between ESSONIO and the broader law of defaults, appearances, and non-suits is important for understanding medieval civil procedure. Failure to essoin properly could result in a default judgment; excessive essoining was itself a form of procedural abuse addressed by statute.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary treats ESSONIO as the opening term of the old essoining formula, citing Bracton (fol. 343b) as authority. Burrill's entry is brief and treats the term as essentially self-defining within the context of essoin practice — useful for identifying the term's procedural home but not a substitute for consulting Bracton directly on the mechanics of the formula.
Burrill's placement of the entry adjacent to material on ESTABLISSEMENTS reflects the alphabetical compression of older legal dictionaries rather than any legal relationship between the terms. The entry for ESSONIO in Burrill should be read as a pointer to the broader entry on ESSOIN, where the substantive doctrine is developed more fully.
Other historical dictionaries (Tomlin's, Cowell's Interpreter, Blount's Law Dictionary) treat essoin and its variants more expansively, covering the recognized categories of essoin, the procedural steps required, and the statutes that regulated the practice. Researchers who encounter ESSONIO in a primary source and need doctrinal context should consult those entries in conjunction with Bracton and the early plea roll literature.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Essoins and Excuses from Court Attendance
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Medieval English Civil Procedure
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Defaults and Non-Appearance in Early Common Law