Definition
A writ directed to an ordinary (a diocesan bishop or other ecclesiastical officer with jurisdiction over a diocese) commanding him to admit a clerk — that is, a clergyman — to a benefice (an ecclesiastical office with attached income) in consequence of an exchange made with another clerk holding a different benefice. The writ gave legal effect to a voluntary swap of livings between two clergymen, translating what was an ecclesiastical arrangement into a formal legal instrument enforceable through the temporal courts.
The term derives from the Latin permutatio, meaning exchange or interchange. In this context it functioned not as a general word for exchange but as the specific name of the writ by which such an ecclesiastical exchange was completed and recorded.
Common Confusion
PERMUTATIONE should not be confused with the broader common-law concept of permutation or exchange of property generally. While the Latin root and the general idea of exchange are shared, PERMUTATIONE as a distinct writ was confined entirely to the ecclesiastical context of benefice exchanges. It has no application to lay property transactions or commercial dealings, which were governed by entirely separate common-law and equitable rules regarding exchange (De Excambio).
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English ecclesiastical and common-law sources. Researchers encountering PERMUTATIONE in historical documents should understand it as a writ of the Register of Original Writs — the collection of standard writ forms issued out of Chancery — rather than as a substantive legal doctrine. Its presence in a document signals a formal exchange of ecclesiastical livings under episcopal supervision, not a civil property transaction.
The writ's significance lies at the intersection of two overlapping legal systems: royal common law and canon law. English ecclesiastical benefices were simultaneously property interests cognizable in royal courts and spiritual offices governed by canon law. The writ PERMUTATIONE was one mechanism by which Chancery facilitated ecclesiastical arrangements without displacing the bishop's canonical authority — the ordinary retained the power to admit; the writ merely commanded him to exercise it.
Researchers working in legal history, church history, or property history of England before the mid-nineteenth century may encounter this term in: writs registered in Chancery rolls, Year Book discussions of ecclesiastical presentations, and treatises on the laws concerning the Church of England. The relevant register cited by Black's — Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) — is a printed collection of original writ forms and is the primary locus for understanding this writ's formal contours.
After the ecclesiastical reforms of the nineteenth century and the gradual displacement of the writ system following the Common Law Procedure Acts and the Judicature Acts, this writ became obsolete. It will not appear in modern legal practice; its relevance is entirely historical.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement, offering identical or near-identical definitions and citing the same authority: Reg. Orig. 307 (Black's) and Cowell and Mozley & Whiteley (Bouvier's). The convergence across these sources reflects the term's narrow and settled meaning — there was nothing contested about its definition, because by the time these dictionaries were compiled the writ had largely passed out of active use and was a matter of antiquarian record.
Rapalje & Lawrence offers no entry for PERMUTATIONE. The excerpt supplied under that source reflects a printing artifact or misattribution — the text visible concerns "perishable goods" and "permanent abode," neither of which is relevant to this term. Researchers should note that Rapalje & Lawrence, as a primarily American legal dictionary, understandably omits writs specific to English ecclesiastical practice that had no American counterpart.
No historical dictionary in the corpus identifies any development, variation, or controversy in the writ's use. This is consistent with its character as a formulaic procedural instrument rather than a developing legal concept.
Jurisdictional Note
PERMUTATIONE was a writ of English law, rooted in the relationship between the Crown and the established Church of England. It has no American equivalent or counterpart, as the United States has no established church and ecclesiastical benefices in the English sense do not exist in American law. Researchers should treat this term as English and pre-modern in scope.