Definition
Per and gui is a Latin-derived term of art from the law of real property actions, specifically the writ of entry. It describes the procedural stage at which a plaintiff in a writ of entry suit pursues an action against a second alienee — that is, a person who received title from someone who originally obtained possession wrongfully, rather than from the original wrongdoer directly.
The phrase combines two Latin words: *per* (through or by) and *gui* (who or whom). Together they denote a chain of title: the plaintiff alleges that the defendant holds the land through a person (per) by whom (gui) the original wrong was committed. A writ of entry *per and gui* lay when the land had passed through exactly one intermediate transfer from the original wrongdoer to the current possessor.
This terminology was part of a graduated scheme of writs of entry in the old common law, where the form of the action depended on how many times the land had changed hands since the original dispossession.
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Common Confusion
Per and gui is easily conflated with related stages of the writ of entry, particularly the writ *in the per* (against the original wrongdoer's immediate transferee) and the writ *in the post* (a more general form available when the chain of alienations had become too long to trace). The *per and gui* writ occupies the middle position: it applies when the original wrong was committed by one person and the land then passed through that person's hands into the defendant's. Researchers should be careful not to treat these three forms as interchangeable — they reflect distinct procedural stages with different requirements.
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Why It Matters in Research
Per and gui belongs to a narrow but important corner of historical real property procedure. It will appear in pre-nineteenth-century English common law materials, early American colonial and post-colonial property records, and in treatises on real actions written before the abolition of the forms of action.
Several research traps are worth noting. First, the writ of entry system, including the per and gui stage, was largely abolished in England by the Real Property Limitation Act of 1833 and more comprehensively by the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852. In American jurisdictions, most states abolished or replaced real actions through nineteenth-century procedural reform legislation and the eventual adoption of code pleading. A researcher encountering *per and gui* in American sources is almost certainly dealing with materials predating these reforms, or with treatise commentary on historical procedure.
Second, because the term appears in fragmentary form even in standard reference works — Black's 2nd edition supplemental entry is notably terse — researchers relying solely on dictionary sources may miss the procedural context. The term cannot be understood apart from the graduated writ of entry scheme, and that scheme requires consulting Bracton, Littleton, Coke on Littleton, or Blackstone's Commentaries (Book III) to understand fully.
Third, *per* appears frequently as a standalone prefix in legal Latin (*per se*, *per curiam*, *per stirpes*), and *gui* may be misread as an abbreviation or error in manuscript sources. Researchers working with handwritten historical records should be alert to this.
The term is unlikely to appear in any live litigation context today but may surface in title examination of ancient grants, in historical legal scholarship, or in annotated editions of early property law treatises.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) supplemental material identifies *per and gui* as arising in the context of a writ of entry brought against a second alienee. This compressed entry reflects the diminishing practical relevance of real actions by the time Black's was compiled, but it correctly identifies the essential distinction: the writ applies not to the first recipient of wrongfully conveyed land, but to the next person down the chain.
Classical common law treatises provide substantially more detail. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England treats writs of entry as a species of real action designed to recover the seisin of land and catalogs the per, per and gui, and in the post stages as reflecting a system that grew increasingly cumbersome as conveyancing practices became more complex. Coke on Littleton similarly treats the graduated forms as a structural feature of the old common law that English courts maintained through fiction and technicality long after the underlying rationale had faded.
What historical dictionaries largely omit is any acknowledgment that by the mid-nineteenth century the entire framework had become vestigial. Researchers should not infer from the dictionary entry alone that *per and gui* represented a living doctrine at the time of Black's publication.
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Jurisdictional Note
Per and gui, as a form of the writ of entry, was an English common law inheritance adopted in early American practice but abolished at varying times by state procedural reform. No American jurisdiction uses the writ of entry system today. In title examination practice, the historical significance of the term is occasionally encountered in chain-of-title research for land grants predating nineteenth-century reform statutes.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses the writ of entry or per and gui. The following entries share only the Latin prefix *per* and are not substantively related: torts_8 (Negligence Per Se), constitutional_66 (Takings Clause Per Se Rules), torts_123 (Defamation Per Se). Researchers should not treat those entries as contextually connected to this term.
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