Definition
A writ of medieval English origin directed to a bishop, commanding him to refrain from disturbing or penalizing a clerk who was employed in the royal service on account of that clerk's non-residence at his ecclesiastical post. The writ functioned as a royal protection, shielding servants of the Crown — typically literate clergymen who served the king in administrative or secretarial capacities — from ecclesiastical discipline that would otherwise flow from their absence from their benefice or cure.
The underlying logic was practical: the royal government depended heavily on educated clergy for administrative work, and a bishop who moved against such a clerk for neglecting his parish duties could effectively deprive the Crown of a valued officer. The writ preempted that interference by invoking royal authority over the temporal consequences of the clerk's absence.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term represents an extremely narrow, archaic writ with no modern counterpart. Researchers are most likely to encounter it when working in:
— Medieval English legal history, particularly materials touching the intersection of royal administration and ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
— Studies of the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Register of Writs), where the writ appears as a formal instrument among royal chancery forms.
— Research into benefit of clergy, non-residence disputes, or the broader tension between Crown prerogative and ecclesiastical authority in pre-Reformation England.
The writ is essentially a fossil — it belongs to an era when the royal administration was substantially staffed by clerics, and when bishops had meaningful coercive power over those clerics via ecclesiastical discipline. The Reformation, the secularization of royal administration, and the eventual statutory regulation of clerical non-residence rendered the writ obsolete. Do not expect to find it in any American source, and its appearance in English sources will be confined to historical and antiquarian treatments. Bouvier's inclusion of it reflects the nineteenth-century practice of preserving historical writs even after they had ceased to have any practical application.
The citation to Reg. Orig. 58 refers to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, the official register of chancery writs — a foundational source for understanding the formal writ system of medieval English common law. Cowel's reference is to John Cowell's legal dictionary, a standard early modern English law reference. Researchers following this trail should be prepared to work in primary sources that are in Latin.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides the only entry among standard American legal dictionaries. The definition is spare: a writ to a bishop, prohibiting molestation of a royal clerk for non-residence, with a dual citation to Cowell and the Register of Writs. Bouvier does not elaborate on the constitutional or jurisdictional mechanics of the writ, the conditions under which it issued, or its historical fate.
No additional synthesis is possible from the available dictionary record. The term does not appear in Black's (early editions) as a standalone entry in the available sources, and it has no presence in American legal literature as a functional instrument. The Bouvier entry is best understood as a preservation note — a record that the writ existed — rather than a working definition for a term in active use even at the time of publication.
Researchers requiring depth beyond Bouvier should consult Cowell's Interpreter directly and examine the Register of Writs in its published or manuscript form.
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Jurisdictional Note
Entirely English in origin and application. No American jurisdiction ever adopted or recognized this writ. It belongs exclusively to the history of English common law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction prior to the Reformation and the secularization of royal administration.
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