Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "on the prayer of the parties" or "at the request of the parties." In historical English practice, *prece partium* described a procedural grant — typically the giving of a day (a *dies datus*) by a court or officer — made not on the court's own motion or by rule of law, but at the joint solicitation of the litigants themselves. Where a continuance, postponement, or other indulgence was granted because both parties asked for it, that grant was said to be made *prece partium*.
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Common Confusion
*Prece partium* should not be confused with procedural grants made at the request of one party only, or with adjournments ordered by the court on its own initiative. The phrase is specifically bilateral: it implies mutual solicitation. In historical records, a continuance entered without this notation may have been opposed or court-directed, which carries different procedural weight. Researchers reading plea rolls or early case reports should not assume that every day given was a *prece partium* grant.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English common law procedural records and the historical dictionaries that catalog that practice. Researchers will encounter it in older court rolls, plea records, and abatement practice when tracing the origins of continuances and adjournments. The phrase signals that the procedural step being described was consensual — both parties sought the same relief — which distinguishes it from a continuance granted over objection or by the court's inherent power.
The primary navigational function of *prece partium* in the Law Mind corpus is as a pointer. Both Rapalje & Lawrence and Burrill treat the phrase as a cross-reference term, directing the reader to *dies datus* (a day given) rather than developing the doctrine independently. Any substantive research on the underlying practice — what it meant for a court to give a day, how such grants affected pleading deadlines, and what consequences followed from a missed return date — must be pursued under *DIES DATUS*. Treating *prece partium* as a self-standing doctrinal entry will lead a researcher in circles; it is a descriptor of the manner in which a *dies datus* was granted, not a doctrine in its own right.
There is also a subtle evidentiary use: in historical records, the notation *prece partium* following a procedural entry was a shorthand assurance that the continuance or day given could not later be imputed as a default or concession by either side. Because both parties requested it, neither could claim advantage from the delay.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence and Burrill are in complete agreement: both render the phrase as "on the prayer of the parties" and both direct the researcher to *dies datus* without elaborating further. Neither source develops the doctrine independently. This uniformity reflects the reality that by the mid-to-late nineteenth century, when both dictionaries were compiled, *prece partium* had become a term of historical and antiquarian interest rather than active pleading vocabulary. The phrase survived in legal dictionaries primarily because it appeared in older authorities and required decoding for practitioners consulting those sources.
What the historical dictionaries do not supply is any account of how the practice actually operated in court — under what circumstances parties could jointly request a day, whether judicial approval was ministerial or discretionary, or how the grant interacted with statutes of limitations and the rules of pleading. For that procedural context, older treatise literature on common law pleading and Blackstone's *Commentaries* (particularly on the forms of action and continuances) offer more developed accounts than the dictionary sources themselves.
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