Definition
Parliamenti is a Latin genitive form meaning "of Parliament," appearing in historical English legal practice in two distinct contexts:
1. Style of parliamentary writs. During the Interregnum period following the execution of King Charles I in 1649, all writs and judicial processes were issued in the name and style of Parliament rather than in the name of the Crown. This styling — running "in the name of the Parliament" — remained the form of judicial process until Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector in 1653, at which point process style shifted again.
2. Parliamentary wage writs. A class of old writs by which knights of the shire and burgesses could recover their wages or allowances from constituents when payment had been refused. These writs derived from an obligation, long recognized in medieval English practice, that members of Parliament were entitled to compensation from their constituencies for attendance and service. The statutory basis for this form of recovery is found in 35 Hen. VIII, c. 11.
Common Confusion
The term is frequently encountered only in its genitive Latin form embedded within longer phrases — most commonly brevia parliamenti (writs of Parliament) or the wage-recovery writ context — and researchers may mistake it for a standalone writ name rather than a modifier. It is not the name of a specific writ but a descriptor indicating parliamentary origin or parliamentary subject matter.
Why It Matters in Research
This term presents two research traps that operate independently:
First, the Interregnum process-style usage is a narrow but significant marker for dating documents. Any writ or judicial instrument bearing the parliamenti style in its caption dates from the period between January 1649 (the execution of Charles I) and December 1653 (Cromwell's assumption of the protectorate). A researcher encountering such instruments in the corpus should treat the style as a chronological anchor and a signal that normal royal authority had been suspended. Post-Restoration instruments will revert to Crown styling, and any document purporting to carry parliamenti styling after 1660 warrants close scrutiny.
Second, the wage-writ usage connects to a largely obsolete constitutional assumption: that parliamentary service was a local, compensated duty rather than a national office. The 35 Hen. VIII, c. 11 reference is one of the few surviving statutory acknowledgments of this obligation. By the eighteenth century, the practice of paying parliamentary wages had effectively died out, making these writs historical curiosities rather than live remedies by the time most legal dictionaries were compiled. A researcher working in Tudor-era parliamentary history or constituency records will find the wage-writ context more operationally relevant than one working in any later period.
Researchers should also note that parliamenti as a modifier appears across a range of medieval and early modern instruments beyond writs — in rolls, petitions, and records — and its meaning shifts depending on the noun it modifies. Context is essential.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary treat parliamenti identically in the wage-writ sense, reproducing the same definition with only minor typographical variation between editions (the second edition appears to contain a printing error, "ig" for "it"). Neither edition adds substantive elaboration or cites additional authority beyond the 35 Hen. VIII, c. 11 reference.
The Interregnum process-style definition appears only in the first edition of Black's and is not carried forward into the second edition in any expanded form. This is a notable omission: the Interregnum styling question is historically significant and the first edition's brief note is the only treatment in the dictionary sources. Neither edition engages with the broader constitutional implications of process running in Parliament's name rather than the Crown's — a dramatic shift that contemporaries recognized as legally consequential.
No other major historical dictionaries in the standard law library corpus (Bouvier, Tomlin, Jacob) appear to have given this term extended treatment, reflecting its status as a Latin genitive rather than a named doctrine or procedure.
Jurisdictional Note
Parliamenti in both senses is exclusively an English legal term rooted in medieval and early modern English parliamentary and constitutional practice. It has no counterpart in Scottish, Irish, or American legal systems and does not survive in any modern jurisdiction as operative law.