Definition
A now-abolished English court officer responsible for drafting the formal writs known as exigents and the accompanying proclamations used in the process of outlawry. The exigenter held a position in the Court of Common Pleas (and, per some sources, also in the Court of King's Bench), with the specific clerical duty of preparing the sequential demands by which a defendant who had evaded court process was progressively called to appear — a procedure that, if unanswered through five county courts, culminated in the defendant being declared an outlaw. The office was abolished by statute (7 Will. IV & 1 Vict. c. 30), enacted in 1837.
Common Confusion
EXIGENTER vs. EXIGENT: These are related but distinct terms. An exigent (or exigi facias) is the writ itself — the formal judicial demand requiring the sheriff to proclaim that the defendant appear or be outlawed. The exigenter is the officer who drafted those writs. Researchers encountering either term in historical sources should be careful not to conflate the officer with the instrument. A separate confusion arises from the word's resemblance to the modern legal term "exigent circumstances" (an exception to the warrant requirement in Fourth Amendment doctrine), which shares only a Latin root and has no procedural or conceptual connection to the exigenter's office.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in pre-1837 English common law materials and in American sources derived from them. After abolition of the office under 7 Will. IV & 1 Vict. c. 30, the term dropped from active legal use; any post-1837 appearance is either historical reference or reproduction of older text.
Researchers working with outlawry procedure will encounter the exigenter as one link in a chain of officers and instruments. Understanding the role clarifies document provenance: an exigent writ bearing the marks of the exigenter's office helps date and contextualize a record within the outlawry process. The exigenter did not exercise judicial discretion — the role was ministerial and clerical — so arguments turning on the officer's conduct or authority will be rare, but procedural challenges to outlawry sometimes touched on whether the exigents and proclamations had been properly made out.
American researchers should note that outlawry procedure was received into some colonial and early American jurisdictions but was never uniformly adopted, and the specific office of exigenter did not transplant consistently into American courts. Sources treating American outlawry practice may reference the exigenter by way of English analogy rather than as a functioning American office.
The term also appears in some historical dictionary entries mixed with an unrelated Roman law concept — the Roman dignitas or "exestimatio" — due to a probable typographical or editorial error in certain Black's editions. Researchers should not infer any connection between the exigenter office and Roman law concepts of civic standing.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries are in close agreement on substance: the exigenter was an officer of the Court of Common Pleas responsible for drafting exigents and proclamations in the outlawry process. Bouvier and Burrill both confirm abolition of the office, with Burrill providing the most precise statutory citation (7 Will. IV & 1 Vict. c. 30) and the additional Latin form exigendarius. Black's 2nd edition corrects and standardizes the entry from the 1st edition, which contains an apparent insertion of unrelated Roman law material (dignitas inlaesa) that does not belong to the exigenter entry and is absent from all other dictionaries — a likely printing or editorial error in the first edition that researchers should disregard.
Webster's 1913 and Wiktionary both confirm the Common Pleas and King's Bench connection, slightly expanding the jurisdictional scope beyond what Bouvier and Burrill describe; this minor discrepancy likely reflects variations in the office's jurisdiction at different points in its history rather than a substantive conflict.
No historical dictionary provides meaningful detail about the exigenter's actual practice, compensation, or procedural relationship to the sheriff executing the writs — for those questions, practitioners' manuals such as Archbold's Practice (cited by Burrill) are the appropriate starting point.
Jurisdictional Note
The exigenter was a creature of English common law and was abolished in England by statute in 1837. The office did not establish a firm foothold in American courts. Researchers working in early American jurisdictions that modeled procedure on English common pleas practice may encounter passing references, but should not assume the office functioned there as it did in England.