Definition
Pour faire proclamer (also rendered in historical sources as "pour faire prooclaimer," reflecting variant early spellings) is an ancient writ of French-law origin, directed to the mayor or bailiff of a city or town, commanding that officer to make public proclamation in connection with nuisances or related matters requiring official public notice. The writ was a mechanism by which a party could compel local civic officers to issue formal proclamation, typically as a procedural step in proceedings concerning public or private nuisances.
The writ belongs to the category of original writs — prerogative instruments issued out of Chancery to initiate or advance proceedings — and reflects the medieval common law's reliance on proclamation as a formal act with legal consequences.
Common Confusion
Do not confuse POUR FAIRE PROCLAMER with POUR SEISIR TERRES. Despite appearing in close proximity in French-law writ listings, these are entirely distinct instruments. Pour seisir terres was a crown writ concerning seizure of dower lands upon unauthorized remarriage of a tenant-in-chief's widow; it had nothing to do with proclamation, nuisances, or municipal officers. The adjacency in dictionary and abridgment listings has created occasional misattribution in secondary legal historical literature.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an obsolete writ with no modern procedural counterpart. Researchers encountering the term will find it almost exclusively in historical pleading records, early English Year Books, abridgments, and Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, which is the primary reference source cited in the dictionaries. It does not appear in modern practice and was never meaningfully transplanted into American common law.
The variant spelling "prooclaimer" appearing in some transcribed sources is a transcription artifact or typographical error from early printed editions of Black's and should not be treated as an alternate legal term. When searching historical corpus sources, researchers should query both "proclamer" and "proclamer" variant spellings, as well as the Latin-French mixed forms that appear in manuscript and early printed abridgments.
Researchers should also be alert to the proximity of this writ in dictionary listings to the distinct writ POUR SEISIR TERRES, which concerned crown seizure of dower lands when a widow of a tenant-in-chief remarried without royal license. These two writs are unrelated in function and are only adjacent in the sources alphabetically. Conflating them would be a significant error in historical legal research.
The writ's practical scope — compelling a municipal officer to make proclamation about nuisances — connects it to the broader medieval law of nuisance and to the administrative authority of borough officers. Researchers tracing the history of public nuisance proceedings or the evolution of municipal regulatory authority may find it a useful data point for the procedural infrastructure of nuisance law before the consolidation of equity and common law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) provides the sole dictionary entry among the Law Mind shelf sources. The entry is brief: it identifies the writ as ancient, specifies that it runs to the mayor or bailiff of a city or town, states its purpose as requiring proclamation concerning nuisances, and cites Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium at page 176 as the underlying authority.
Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium is the foundational catalog of original writs in English legal history and remains the authoritative historical source for the formal content and scope of this writ. Researchers working from Black's alone receive a sufficient orienting description but should consult Fitzherbert directly for the full text and procedural context of the writ's issuance.
No other dictionary in the standard shelf of historical legal dictionaries — including Bouvier or Tomlin — provides a materially different or supplementary account. The writ was already antiquarian by the time American legal dictionaries were being compiled, and its coverage in those sources reflects its marginal relevance to post-colonial legal practice.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was an instrument of English common law and never formed part of American federal or state practice. It is of research relevance only in the context of English legal history, particularly medieval and early modern pleading and the history of nuisance law.