Definition
A writ of English ecclesiastical law, issued out of Chancery upon a bishop's certificate that a named individual had been excommunicated by the church. The writ directed the sheriff to arrest and imprison the excommunicated person, making the civil power of the Crown available to enforce a spiritual penalty. The writ was returnable to the Court of King's Bench. It represents the procedural bridge between ecclesiastical jurisdiction and secular enforcement in pre-modern English law — the church could declare excommunication, but it relied on the Crown's officers to give that declaration teeth.
The full Latin phrase reads "de excommunicato capiendo" — meaning "for taking an excommunicated person" — and the term appears in sources both with and without the leading "de." Rapalje & Lawrence cross-references it directly under DE EXCOMMUNICATO CAPIENDO.
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Common Confusion
EXCOMMUNICATO CAPIENDO vs. DE EXCOMMUNICATO CAPIENDO: These are the same writ. Historical dictionaries and treatises vary in whether they include the preposition "de." Researchers encountering either form in a source are looking at the same instrument. Do not treat them as distinct writs. Similarly, do not confuse this writ with EXCOMMUNICATO DELIBERANDO, a related but distinct writ by which an imprisoned excommunicate who had made satisfaction was ordered released.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to pre-modern English ecclesiastical and common law. Researchers are unlikely to encounter it in any operative legal context after the 19th century. Its relevance in the Law Mind corpus is primarily historical and doctrinal:
SPELLING AND FORM VARIATION: Sources split between "excommunicato capiendo" and "de excommunicato capiendo." Both forms appear in Blackstone, Bacon's Abridgment, and the standard dictionaries. When searching historical indices or digests, run both forms.
JURISDICTIONAL OBSOLESCENCE: This writ was a creature of English law and had no meaningful analogue in American practice. The separation of church and state embedded in American constitutionalism made civil enforcement of ecclesiastical censures structurally unavailable from the founding. Researchers working in American ecclesiastical or constitutional history should note this gap explicitly — the writ's absence from American law is as informative as its presence in English law.
WHAT IT REVEALS ABOUT CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS: The writ is a primary-source window into the entanglement of ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction in medieval and early modern England. It demonstrates that excommunication was not merely a spiritual sanction — it had civil consequences enforced by the sheriff and the royal courts. This structural fact matters for anyone researching the history of religious liberty, the power of ecclesiastical courts, or the dissolution of that system through 19th-century English legal reform.
BOUVIER'S TRUNCATION: The Bouvier's entry in the available source material is incomplete, cutting off after the Latin gloss and the opening of the definition. Researchers relying on Bouvier's should consult Blackstone's Commentaries (Book 4, Chapter 28) and Bacon's Abridgment under "Excommunication" directly for the full procedural account — both are the underlying authorities cited by all major dictionaries on this point.
ECCLESIASTICAL LAW CORPUS CONNECTIONS: This writ connects to the broader body of material on English ecclesiastical courts, the jurisdiction of the Court of Arches, the role of the bishop's certificate as a trigger for secular action, and the eventual absorption or abolition of ecclesiastical penalties under 19th-century English reform legislation.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Bouvier's agree on the essential character of the writ: it issues from Chancery, it is grounded in a bishop's certificate, it commands the sheriff to arrest and imprison, and it is returnable to King's Bench. The Black's entries cite Blackstone's Commentaries (4 Bl. Comm. 415) and Bacon's Abridgment ("Excommunication," E) — the two standard authorities for this writ in the English tradition.
Rapalje & Lawrence declines to define the term independently and cross-references DE EXCOMMUNICATO CAPIENDO instead, which is a reasonable editorial choice reflecting the more common form of the writ's name in practice.
None of the historical dictionaries address the writ's abolition or the English statutory reforms that dismantled the civil enforcement of ecclesiastical censures in the 19th century. The Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 and related legislation are relevant context that historical dictionaries uniformly omit. Researchers should not assume from the dictionary entries that the writ remained in active use through the time of those publications — it was largely a historical artifact well before Black's first edition appeared.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ is an instrument of English law with no American equivalent. The civil enforcement of excommunication through royal writs required the institutional union of church and state that the First Amendment made constitutionally unavailable in the United States. American researchers will encounter this term only in historical, comparative, or ecclesiastical law contexts.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Ecclesiastical Courts and Jurisdiction
Law Mind Encyclopedia — History of the Writ System
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Church and State in English Legal History
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