Definition
A writ directing the issuance of an exemplification — that is, an officially certified transcript of an original record — so that the copy may be used as evidence in legal proceedings. The writ compelled the relevant court or office to produce a certified copy of a record in proper form, authenticated as a true and accurate reproduction of the original. The exemplification itself, once produced, carried evidentiary weight equivalent to the original record it represented.
The term is the name of the writ in its Latin form. It is distinct from the exemplification (the document produced), though the two are closely linked: the writ is the procedural instrument, and the exemplification is the result.
Common Confusion
EXEMPLIFICATIONE (the writ) is easily conflated with EXEMPLIFICATION (the certified copy itself) and with DE EXEMPLIFICATIONE (a related form). The writ and the document share a root and appear side-by-side in historical sources, but they are not the same thing. A researcher encountering "exemplification" in older materials must determine from context whether the reference is to the writ that commands production of the copy, or to the authenticated transcript that results. Rapalje & Lawrence's entry for EXEMPLIFICATIONE redirects simply to DE EXEMPLIFICATIONE, suggesting the forms were treated as variants of the same procedural mechanism rather than as sharply distinct writs.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in older English practice and early common law sources. It belongs to the class of Latin-form writs that are now obsolete as procedural vehicles but that appear regularly in historical pleading records, register-of-writs collections, and treatises on evidence and proof.
Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, the term is rarely indexed independently. Historical dictionaries often fold it into broader entries on exemplification or cross-reference it to DE EXEMPLIFICATIONE without full treatment, as Rapalje & Lawrence illustrates. Researchers who look only for the Latin writ name may miss substantive discussion housed under the anglicized form.
Second, the underlying concept — official certified copies as admissible evidence — survived the writ itself by centuries. Modern authentication rules (and their historical predecessors in treatises on evidence) address the same problem the writ solved. A researcher tracing the evidentiary treatment of public records across time must connect this writ-era practice to later statutory and rule-based authentication regimes.
Third, the Reg. Orig. (Registrum Omnium Brevium, or Register of Writs) citation appearing in both Black's editions is the primary historical anchor for this writ. Researchers who need the original formulation of the writ should consult that source directly; neither Black's edition quotes it at length.
Fourth, jurisdictional carryover into early American practice is uneven. American courts inherited English common law forms selectively, and the Latin writ form largely gave way to domestic statutory procedures for certifying records. Researchers working in early American case law should not assume the English writ form was adopted wholesale.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's first and second editions are substantively in agreement, both defining the term as a writ for the exemplification or transcript of an original record and both anchoring the definition to Reg. Orig. 290. The second edition adds the useful gloss that the copy must be "made in form to be used as evidence, and authenticated as a true copy," which clarifies the evidentiary purpose more explicitly than the first edition.
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is unhelpfully brief, offering only a redirect to DE EXEMPLIFICATIONE. This reflects a tendency in that dictionary to consolidate related Latin writ forms rather than treat each independently. It does, however, confirm that practitioners understood the two forms as closely related variants.
What the historical dictionaries collectively leave underdeveloped is the procedural context: who petitioned for this writ, which courts issued it, and how exemplifications produced under it were received into evidence at trial. Researchers needing that level of detail must look beyond these dictionaries to treatises on evidence, pleading practice, and the Register of Writs itself.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is a product of English common law practice and appears primarily in English sources. Its application in American jurisdictions was limited and largely supplanted by early statutory frameworks governing certified copies of public records. Researchers working in American materials from the colonial or early republic periods should treat English writ-form references as background context rather than operative law.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: AUTHENTICATION OF RECORDS; CERTIFIED COPIES; WRITS (HISTORICAL FORMS)