Definition
Latin: "in simple pilgrimage." A phrase from medieval English procedural law describing one of the recognized categories of essoin — a formal excuse for a party's failure to appear in court. Specifically, this essoin applied when a litigant was absent because he had undertaken an ordinary, domestic pilgrimage, as distinguished from a crusade or journey to the Holy Land. The distinction mattered legally: a pilgrimage to a local or regional shrine was treated differently from the graver absence entailed by participation in a general passage (a Crusade), which was governed by a separate and more favorable essoin.
Common Confusion
IN SIMPLICI PEREGRINATIONE is frequently paired with — and should be distinguished from — IN GENERALI PASSAGIO ("in general passage"), the essoin for absence on Crusade. Both arise in the same legal framework and the same primary sources, but they are not interchangeable. The general passage essoin was treated as a graver, more protected absence given the religious and military dimensions of Crusade; the simple pilgrimage essoin applied to ordinary domestic or regional religious travel. Researchers should not treat the two as variants of the same rule.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in sources treating the medieval English law of essoins — excuses recognized at common law for non-appearance. Researchers encountering IN SIMPLICI PEREGRINATIONE in a primary or secondary source are almost certainly working in the pre-modern common law period, likely engaging with Bracton's DE LEGIBUS ET CONSUETUDINIBUS ANGLIAE or commentary derived from it. The phrase signals a technical pleading context: the law of essoins was highly formal, with specific delays, procedures, and consequences attached to each recognized type.
The critical research trap here is conflation with the related essoin IN GENERALI PASSAGIO — "in general passage" — which applied to those absent on Crusade. The two essoins carried different procedural consequences and different timelines for allowed delay. Burrill explicitly cross-references IN GENERALI PASSAGIO as the companion term, and researchers should follow that path to understand how the two were distinguished in practice. Both terms surface in Bracton at the folio references cited in the historical dictionaries; any research into the substance of either essoin must go to Bracton directly rather than relying solely on dictionary summaries.
Because essoins as a formal procedural device are effectively extinct in modern practice, this term will not appear in modern case law or statutes. Its research value is purely historical: it illuminates the procedural machinery of the medieval English common law courts, the social reality of pilgrimage as a legally cognizable absence, and the hierarchy the law constructed among different kinds of travel. Scholars of legal history, ecclesiastical law, or the intersection of canon and common law will find this term a useful marker for those intersections.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries — both editions of Black's and Burrill's — are in complete agreement: the phrase translates as "in simple pilgrimage" and is identified as a term from the old law of essoins, with the citation to Bracton, fol. 338, reproduced identically across all three. The entries are minimal, functioning as pointer entries rather than substantive explanations; their brevity reflects the term's narrow technical scope and historical obsolescence.
Burrill adds the explicit cross-reference to IN GENERALI PASSAGIO, which is the more useful navigational signal. Black's (both editions) directs readers only to the generic "See IN" entry, which is less helpful for researchers trying to understand the essoin taxonomy. Neither Black's edition elaborates on the procedural consequences of this essoin type. For any meaningful treatment of the doctrine, researchers must consult Bracton directly, along with secondary scholarship on medieval English procedure such as F.W. Maitland's writings on early common law pleading, which address the essoin system in context.
The historical dictionaries do not convey how essoins functioned procedurally — the delays permitted, the conditions for their allowance or denial, or the distinctions among essoin types — making this an area where the dictionaries serve only as entry points.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Essoins; Medieval English Civil Procedure; Bracton and the Early Common Law.