Definition
A historical Anglo-Norman legal term meaning a file — specifically, the physical thread or cord on which writs and legal papers were strung for official record-keeping in English courts. The word derives from the Latin filum (thread) and passed through Old French as file and filace before entering the vocabulary of English legal practice.
The term appears most directly in the phrase en filace, meaning "on file," and in the related phrase remue de philas, meaning "removed from the file." Both usages reflect the literal practice of threading court documents together for storage and retrieval — a mundane administrative reality that produced a cluster of technical legal vocabulary.
FILACE is the noun form. The officer responsible for maintaining these filed writs in the Court of Common Pleas was called a FILACER (also spelled filazer or filizer; Latin filizarius or filazarius). There were fourteen filacers in the Court of Common Pleas, each responsible for filing writs and making out process from them.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "File" in modern English means to place documents in organized storage, or the organized collection itself. The verb and noun are both in active everyday use.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A file is "a thread, string or wire on which papers are strung for preservation and reference; hence, the collection of papers so strung."
Editorial note: The gap here is largely historical rather than semantic. Modern speakers use "file" and "filing" without any awareness of the literal thread that gave rise to the term. FILACE preserves the archaic French form of that same root, which is why it appears in early English legal records but has no surviving modern counterpart in ordinary speech.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with early English common law records — particularly Year Books, plea rolls, and documents touching the Court of Common Pleas — will encounter filace and its variants as routine administrative terminology. Several navigational points are worth noting.
Spelling instability is significant. The term appears as filace, philas, and in Latinized forms such as filizarius and filazarius across different sources and periods. Britton's usage of philas is an early variant that can mislead a researcher unfamiliar with the term's lineage. Keyword searching on a single spelling will miss material.
The phrase en filace functions as the operational ancestor of the modern "on file" — a researcher tracing the legal meaning or procedural significance of filing documents into the record will find this term at the historical root. It marks the moment when "filing" was not metaphorical but literal.
The FILACER as an office is the more developed concept. Understanding filace is largely necessary as a gateway to understanding the filacer's role: the filacer's authority to make out process depended entirely on the writs being properly threaded onto the file in his custody. Irregularities in filing — including removal from the file (remue de philas) — had procedural consequences in actions before the court.
The Court of Common Pleas context is essential. Filace and its derivatives are primarily creatures of that court's practice. Researchers working in Chancery, King's Bench, or Exchequer records may encounter analogous filing officers under different names.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the core entry, tracing filace through Kelham (for en filace) and Britton (for philas and remue de philas), and connecting the term to the FILACER via Cowell's Interpreter. This is the expected chain of authority for archaic court-officer terminology: Britton for early usage, Cowell for institutional definition, Kelham for Norman French glossing.
What historical sources do not provide is any sustained analysis of the procedural stakes of filing or removal from the file — the entries treat these as self-evident administrative facts rather than matters requiring legal elaboration. A researcher looking for the consequences of improper filing or unauthorized removal will need to move beyond the dictionary literature into the plea rolls and practice manuals of the Court of Common Pleas directly.
Jurisdictional Note
Filace and the filacer are English legal institutions specific to the Court of Common Pleas, which was abolished by the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875. The term has no meaningful counterpart in American legal history and does not appear in colonial or early American court practice under this name.