Definition
The act of obtaining something through petition or earnest entreaty. In English legal usage, the term carries a specific ecclesiastical meaning: the procurement of a church benefice from Rome by direct solicitation, where that benefice rightfully belonged to the gift of the English king or a lay patron. The impetration of such benefices was treated as an encroachment on the Crown's prerogative and on the rights of lay patrons, and was accordingly condemned or restricted by statute.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of impetrating, or obtaining by petition or entreaty; also, specifically, the obtaining of a benefice from Rome by solicitation belonging to the disposal of the king or other lay patron.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The act of obtaining by petition or entreaty [Obs.]; in theological usage, procuring the removal or alleviation of one's crosses; also, the obtaining of a benefice from Rome by solicitation belonging to the disposal of the king or other lay patron.
The common and legal definitions overlap unusually closely here, which reflects the term's obsolescence — it was never absorbed into general English use apart from its legal and ecclesiastical contexts. The Webster's 1913 marks it "Obs.," confirming it had already left active vocabulary by the nineteenth century. Researchers should note that the broader sense — obtaining anything by petition — was also recognized in law (Rapalje & Lawrence: "acquiring anything in order to distinguish it from implication by request and prayer"), but the ecclesiastical application is what gave the term its legal weight.
Why It Matters in Research
Impetration is an archival and historical term with no living legal application. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in:
— Medieval and early modern English statutes targeting papal interference with English benefices, particularly legislation predating and surrounding the Reformation. The Statutes of Provisors (beginning 1351) and associated praemunire legislation addressed exactly the conduct impetration describes — circumventing the king's or lay patron's right of presentation by going directly to Rome.
— Ecclesiastical law treatises and Year Books through the Tudor period, where the term appears in disputes over advowsons and rights of presentation.
— Canon law texts, where the concept has a parallel history in Roman ecclesiastical practice.
The key research trap is reading impetration as a purely neutral procedural term (mere petition) when the legal sources almost universally treat it as a wrong — an encroachment. Bouvier is explicit that the ancient English statutes used the term to signify a pre-obtaining that violated domestic rights of patronage. A researcher skimming for the general sense of "obtaining by petition" will miss the adversarial charge the word carries in most of its legal appearances.
Corpus connections: Impetration connects directly to the history of the Crown's contest with Rome over ecclesiastical appointments, which runs through a substantial body of pre-Reformation English public law. It also connects to advowson doctrine and the law of presentation, where the right being violated by impetration was the right of the patron to present a candidate to a vacant living.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier track the same two-part structure: a general sense (obtaining by petition or entreaty) and a specific ecclesiastical sense (obtaining a benefice from Rome that belonged to the king or lay patron). This consistency suggests all are drawing from the same underlying authorities — Black's cites Webster and Cowell directly; Bouvier's phrasing is parallel without citation.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds one useful nuance the others omit: the contrast between impetration and implication. Rapalje defines impetration as "acquiring anything in order to distinguish it from implication by request and prayer," citing Cowell. This suggests the term had technical force in distinguishing modes of acquisition — what was obtained by explicit petition versus what arose by inference or operation of law. The other dictionaries do not develop this distinction, and it may reflect an older, narrower technical usage that Cowell preserved but which did not carry forward into later legal vocabulary.
None of the historical dictionaries attempt to connect impetration to the Statutes of Provisors by name, which is a gap for researchers who need to locate the legislative context. The dictionaries treat it as a vocabulary item rather than as a doctrine embedded in specific statutory history.
Jurisdictional Note
Impetration as a legal term is specific to English law and its ecclesiastical history. It has no recognized application in American law, which inherited neither the Crown's relationship with Rome nor the English law of advowsons in any operative form. Researchers working in Scottish ecclesiastical history should verify whether parallel terminology appears in Scots law sources, as the Kirk's governance structure followed a different trajectory.