Definition
Quare non admittit (Latin: "wherefore he does not admit") is a historical English writ directed against a bishop who refused to admit a clerk presented to a benefice by the plaintiff. Where a patron won a right of presentation — establishing that the living was theirs to fill — and the bishop nonetheless declined to admit the nominated clerk, this writ provided a remedy in damages against the bishop for that refusal.
The writ belongs to the broader cluster of ecclesiastical-civil remedies that English common law developed to regulate the boundary between lay patronage rights and episcopal authority over church appointments.
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Common Confusion
Quare non admittit is easily confused with the writ ad admittendum clericum, which preceded it procedurally. The writ ad admittendum clericum commanded the bishop to perform the admission; quare non admittit arose only after that command had been defied or returned insufficiently. The two writs are sequential, not interchangeable. Researchers encountering either writ in a historical record should check whether both appear in the same dispute, as noncompliance with the ad admittendum clericum writ was itself grounds for fine against the bishop — meaning quare non admittit may have been redundant in practice and rarely appears in the record.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical English ecclesiastical and common law sources. Several research considerations apply:
First, the writ's practical obsolescence is confirmed by Black's own source: even at the time of compilation, it was described as "rarely or never necessary," because a bishop who defied or inadequately responded to the prior writ ad admittendum clericum could be fined directly. Researchers should not expect frequent case references or procedural developments — the writ's interest is taxonomic and historical rather than doctrinal.
Second, the writ situates itself within the advowson system — the network of property rights governing who held the power to nominate clergy to church livings. Understanding quare non admittit requires familiarity with the writs of right of advowson, darrein presentment, and quare impedit, which were the primary vehicles for contesting presentation rights. Quare non admittit presupposes that the patronage dispute has already been resolved in the plaintiff's favor; it is a remedial tail-end instrument, not a primary pleading tool.
Third, the writ reflects a recurring tension in English legal history between the temporal courts' jurisdiction over property rights incident to church livings and the ecclesiastical courts' jurisdiction over spiritual matters proper. The fact that damages ran against the bishop personally — rather than through any ecclesiastical process — is a marker of how aggressively the common law courts asserted control over advowson rights by the medieval and early modern periods.
Fourth, for researchers working with older treatise literature, Watson's Clergyman's Law (cited in Black's) is the natural primary source to consult. References in Blackstone's Commentaries and Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium on the related presentment writs will supply the wider procedural context that Black's compressed entry does not.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) provides the only entry among the Law Mind shelf sources. The definition is brief and accurate as far as it goes, identifying the writ's purpose (damages against a non-admitting bishop) and its procedural relationship to the ad admittendum clericum writ. Black's correctly flags the writ's near-obsolescence, crediting Watson's Clergyman's Law for the observation that fine against the bishop for defying or returning insufficiently on the prior writ made quare non admittit practically unnecessary.
What Black's does not supply — and what no single dictionary entry could — is the procedural sequence in full: the original presentment dispute, the establishment of patronage rights, the issuance of the ad admittendum clericum writ, the bishop's noncompliance, and only then the possible resort to quare non admittit. Researchers relying solely on the dictionary entry risk misunderstanding the writ's place in a multi-step process. Historical sources on English ecclesiastical law and the advowson writ system are necessary supplements.
No other Law Mind shelf dictionaries carry an entry for this term, which itself signals the writ's marginal practical significance even in historical practice.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ is a product of English ecclesiastical and common law and has no meaningful application in American law. The absence of an established church in the United States eliminated the advowson system entirely. Researchers encountering this term outside English legal history sources should treat it as a borrowing or historical reference rather than operative law.
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