Definition
Impedit is a Latin term meaning "he hinders" or "he impedes." In English law, it functions primarily as a term of art within the writ of quare impedit — a common law action brought to vindicate the right of presentation to a church living (advowson) when that right had been obstructed by another. The word appears as a formal element of pleading in that writ, identifying the defendant as the party who wrongfully interferes with the plaintiff's right to present a clerk to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice.
The term does not carry an independent legal meaning apart from its role in this procedural context. Its significance lies almost entirely in the phrase quare impedit ("wherefore he hinders"), which was the operative writ through which disputes over advowsons were litigated in English ecclesiastical and common law courts.
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Common Confusion
Impedit, impedire, and quare impedit are closely related but distinct: impedit is the third-person singular present indicative form of the verb impedire (to impede or hinder); impedire is the infinitive and appears as its own term of art in discussions of the writ's foundation; and quare impedit is the full name of the writ itself. Researchers encountering any one of these in historical sources should be alert to the others appearing nearby. The Bracton passage quoted in Burrill treats impedit as the grammatically operative word that names the defendant's act — it is not the writ's name but the charge embedded within it.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is an archaic Latin pleading term encountered almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English sources and in American legal dictionaries and treatises that inherited the English common law vocabulary wholesale. Researchers should note several navigational points:
First, impedit as a standalone headword is rare. Most substantive legal treatment appears under quare impedit or advowson, not under impedit itself. If a source indexes this term independently, it is likely doing so for grammatical or etymological completeness rather than as a doctrinal entry — Burrill's treatment is a clear example of this pattern.
Second, the Bracton passage quoted in Burrill (fol. 247) is a genuine locus classicus for the conceptual underpinning of the writ. Bracton's image — that the defendant "puts his foot into another's right" where no right belongs to him — captures the possessory logic of quare impedit: it is not merely a property action but an interference action, protecting the plaintiff's right to exercise a liberty (presentation) against encroachment. Researchers tracing the theoretical basis of advowson litigation in Bracton-era sources will find this framing repeated.
Third, American legal sources that include impedit almost never do so because the writ had practical force in American courts. By the time American legal dictionaries were compiled, advowson as a legal institution had no purchase in most American jurisdictions, where church and state separation foreclosed the transplant of ecclesiastical living disputes into civil courts. The term appears in American legal dictionaries as part of inherited English common law vocabulary, not as a living term of practice.
Fourth, when researching historical English ecclesiastical patronage disputes, impedit will surface in plea rolls and Year Books as a formulaic element. Its presence signals that the underlying dispute concerns presentation rights, not property ownership in the modern sense.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is concise and accurate as far as it goes. It correctly identifies impedit as the third-person singular of impedire, correctly locates its legal significance within quare impedit, and usefully quotes the Bracton passage that provides the conceptual etymology. The Latin gloss — that the word is compounded of in and pes (foot) — is Bracton's own, and Burrill reproduces it faithfully.
What Burrill does not do is explain the writ of quare impedit in any depth; that treatment is reserved for the separate entry on that term. Researchers should treat the impedit entry as a grammatical and etymological pointer rather than a doctrinal resource. The entry's value is in confirming that the word is not merely a generic Latin verb that wandered into legal usage but a technically freighted term tied to a specific writ with a specific procedural history.
No other source dictionary was available for comparison in this compilation. Given the term's narrow scope, the absence of additional sources does not create a significant gap; the doctrinal content belongs to quare impedit and advowson, where richer treatment will be found.
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Jurisdictional Note
Quare impedit was an English common law writ with limited or no transplantation into American practice. Impedit as a legal term of art is therefore primarily relevant to English legal history and to researchers working with pre-nineteenth-century English or colonial sources. It carries no operative meaning in modern American, Canadian, or Australian legal practice.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Quare Impedit
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Advowson
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Writ Practice (Historical)
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