Definition
A writ directed to the justices of the common pleas, commanding them to issue a further writ to a bishop for the admission of a clerk in place of another clerk previously presented by the Crown. The writ arose in a narrow procedural situation: where a suit over a church living had been resolved in the Crown's favor but the Crown's clerk died before being formally admitted to the benefice, and additionally where a demise of the Crown had occurred during the underlying suit. The writ enabled the Crown — or its successor — to present a new clerk to fill the vacancy created by the first clerk's death before admittance, without relitigating the original judgment.
The name derives from the Latin for "by the death of another," describing the triggering condition: the death of the clerk previously presented before he could take possession of the living.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in sources dealing with English ecclesiastical procedure and the medieval and early modern law of advowsons — the right to present a clergyman to a church living. Researchers encountering it in historical materials should understand that it belongs to a cluster of now-obsolete writs governing disputes between the Crown and private patrons over the right of presentation. The writ is not a substantive doctrine but a procedural remedy addressing a gap in the enforcement of a prior judgment.
The primary research trap is context collapse. The historical dictionary sources that contain this entry are themselves fragmentary and cross-contaminated with unrelated text — a recurring artifact of optical character recognition and reprinting errors in compiled legal dictionaries. Black's 1st edition entry for MORTEM ALTERIUS runs directly into text about the College of Cardinals and the electoral college, and Black's 2nd edition trails into unrelated contract law material. Researchers should treat these entries as starting points only and verify against primary sources such as Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium or Comyns' Digest under "Quare Impedit" and related headings, where the writ is discussed in proper procedural context.
Because advowson law was abolished in practice long before American independence, this writ has no American legal counterpart and no ongoing relevance to U.S. courts. It will appear in American legal dictionaries solely as a matter of completeness for practitioners trained in English ecclesiastical law or engaged in historical research.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition: a writ running to the justices of common pleas, directing them to command the bishop to admit a new Crown-presented clerk following the death of the previously presented clerk before admittance. Rapalje & Lawrence provides the most complete surviving text among the three entries, adding the detail that the original judgment having passed for the king's clerk, his death before admittance opened a new presentation to the Crown. All three sources are corrupted by typesetting or OCR errors that append wholly unrelated material to the entry, which should alert researchers that none of these entries can be read in isolation as authoritative.
None of the source dictionaries situate the writ within the broader system of quare impedit proceedings or explain the demise-of-the-Crown complication with sufficient clarity to be useful without supplemental research. The historical sources are useful for confirming existence and basic shape of the writ; they are not useful as standalone explanations of its procedural mechanics.
Jurisdictional Note
MORTEM ALTERIUS is exclusively an English ecclesiastical and common law writ with no reception into American law. Researchers working in American legal materials will encounter it only in general reference dictionaries reprinting English sources. Any appearance in a substantive American legal document would be anomalous and warrants careful scrutiny of context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Disclaimers as a Post-Mortem Estate Planning Tool (The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia, estates_132) — peripheral relevance only; useful for researchers who encounter MORTEM ALTERIUS in probate-adjacent historical materials and need orientation to post-mortem legal concepts generally.