Definition
A writ of English common law origin that issued for the release of a person imprisoned for re-disseisin, upon payment of a reasonable fine to the crown. The writ functioned as a mechanism for obtaining discharge from custody where the imprisonment arose specifically from commission of a re-disseisin — the aggravated offense of dispossessing a person who had already recovered land through a prior disseisin action.
Common Confusion
Bouvier's Law Dictionary cross-references PIENDO to DE CONTUMACE CAPIENDO, a distinct writ concerned with the arrest of a person in contempt of ecclesiastical court proceedings. The two writs share nothing in function or context; Bouvier's reference appears to be an editorial misdirection or error rather than a meaningful doctrinal connection. Researchers should not treat the two writs as related.
Why It Matters in Research
PIENDO is a narrow, archaic English writ of the old real property system and will appear almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century English common law sources, writs registers, and treatises on the forms of action. Researchers tracing historical real property remedies — particularly the escalating offenses of disseisin, re-disseisin, and their associated writs — may encounter PIENDO as one link in that procedural chain. The writ has no surviving American counterpart; the forms of action that generated it were abolished in England by the Common Law Procedure Acts of the mid-nineteenth century and were never transplanted into American practice in recognizable form.
The citation in both editions of Black's to "Reg. Orig. 222" (or "222h" in the second edition) refers to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, the historic English register of writs, which is the primary documentary source for this entry. Researchers consulting that register or secondary treatises built from it will find PIENDO catalogued among the writs associated with real actions. Because the citation appears in abbreviated form and the pagination differs slightly between the two Black's editions, researchers should treat both references as pointing to the same passage in the Registrum and account for potential variation across manuscript and print versions of that source.
The disconnect between Bouvier's treatment and Black's treatment is itself a research signal: where a dictionary simply redirects to an unrelated writ rather than defining the term, it typically reflects either a gaps in the editor's access to sources or a deliberate choice to treat the term as obsolete. Bouvier's redirection to DE CONTUMACE CAPIENDO should not be followed as substantive guidance on PIENDO.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's together represent the full extent of standard American legal dictionary treatment of this term, and their coverage is thin. Both Black's editions provide the same substantive definition — a writ for release from imprisonment for re-disseisin upon payment of a fine — drawn from the Registrum Omnium Brevium. The two editions differ only in a minor typographical discrepancy in the page citation (222b vs. 222h), likely a transcription artifact. Bouvier adds nothing to the definition; his cross-reference to DE CONTUMACE CAPIENDO is unhelpful at best and misleading at worst.
No modern legal dictionary carries this term as a live entry, which is consistent with the writ's complete obsolescence. Historical legal dictionaries from the English tradition, including those predating Black's, would be the logical next step for a researcher needing fuller treatment.
Jurisdictional Note
PIENDO was a writ of English common law and has no recognized American counterpart. It is relevant only to research involving English legal history, pre-abolition forms of action, or the historical real property system in England and Wales.