Definition
Latin. "The order of attachments." A procedural doctrine of medieval English common law practice governing the prescribed sequence in which attachments — the seizure of a defendant's property or person to compel appearance or satisfy a judgment — were required to be executed. The term refers not merely to a single writ but to the formal ordering of the attachment process as a whole: the rule that attachments had to proceed in a fixed, hierarchical sequence before more coercive measures could be taken.
Common Confusion
Ordo attachiamentorum should not be confused with the writ of attachment itself, which is a specific legal instrument. The ordo is the procedural rule governing the sequence of attachments; a writ of attachment is the individual instrument issued at a particular step in that sequence. Similarly, the term should be distinguished from solemnitas attachiamentorum, which concerns the formal requirements (solemnities) attending the attachment process, rather than its ordering. The two concepts are related and often appear together in the same sources, but they address different aspects of the procedural framework.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in sources dealing with early English common law procedure, and researchers are unlikely to encounter it outside of highly technical medieval or early modern materials. Its presence in a document signals engagement with pre-modern writ practice, particularly the elaborate procedural scaffolding that governed how courts compelled defendants to appear or respond.
The primary function of this term in Law Mind corpus research is as a pointer. When encountered in a source, it directs the researcher toward the broader procedural architecture of attachment in English practice — a system that operated through progressive escalation, from summons to attachment to distress to outlawry. Understanding that the ordo was a binding sequence, not a discretionary one, matters when interpreting why a particular writ or court record takes the form it does.
Researchers working in records of the common law courts before the procedural reforms of the nineteenth century — particularly before the Common Law Procedure Acts — should be alert to the fact that failure to observe the ordo could be a basis for challenge. The term therefore appears in contexts of procedural objection as well as doctrinal exposition.
Because the term is a Latin phrase drawn from Fleta (a late thirteenth-century English legal treatise), it is most likely to surface in treatise literature, Year Book discussions, and commentaries on early English practice rather than in reported cases or statutes. Researchers who encounter it in a secondary source should trace back to the Fleta passage (lib. 2, c. 51, § 12) for the primary authority, as the dictionary entries uniformly cite that source.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are consistent and terse. Black's, Burrill's, and Rapalje & Lawrence all define the term identically — "the order of attachments" — and each traces authority to Fleta, lib. 2, c. 51, § 12. There is no meaningful divergence among the sources.
Burrill adds the cross-reference to Solemnitas attachiamentorum, which is the more directly descriptive companion term referring to the formalities or solemnities required in the attachment process. This cross-reference is the most practically useful piece of information in the historical entries: it signals that the ordo and the solemnitas are related concepts that should be researched in tandem when reconstructing early attachment procedure.
What the historical dictionaries do not provide is any substantive explanation of what the order actually required — which steps preceded which, under what circumstances the sequence could be varied, or how violations were treated. Researchers needing that level of detail must go to Fleta directly or to Coke's commentary on early writ practice. The dictionaries here function as index entries, not explanations.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to early English common law practice and has no recognized counterpart in American, Scottish, or civilian legal traditions. It does not appear in equity practice. Researchers working in American colonial records would not expect to encounter it except in the most learned or formally trained legal writings.