QUINTO EXACTUS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

QUINTO EXACTUSAuthored

The Law Mind • 672 words

Definition

A Latin phrase meaning "called or exacted the fifth time." In old English practice, quinto exactus described the sheriff's formal return to the court after a defendant had been proclaimed, required, or exacted to appear in five successive county courts and had failed to do so at each. Upon this fifth and final default, the defendant was declared an outlaw by the coroners of the county. The phrase thus marks the terminal procedural step in the exaction process — the point at which repeated demands for appearance were exhausted and the extreme legal consequence of outlawry attached.

Common Confusion

Quinto exactus is sometimes loosely equated with the broader outlawry process itself, but it is more precisely the sheriff's return documenting the fifth exaction — a discrete procedural record, not the act of outlawry. The outlawry was pronounced by the coroners; quinto exactus is the evidentiary predicate that triggered their authority to act. Researchers should also distinguish this term from the earlier sequential returns (primo exactus, secundo exactus, and so forth), each of which represented a prior stage in the same process without yet authorizing outlawry.

Why It Matters in Research

This term appears almost exclusively in historical English common law materials predating the formal abolition of outlawry in civil proceedings (achieved in England by statute in the nineteenth century). Researchers encountering quinto exactus in medieval or early modern records — plea rolls, sheriff's returns, or county court records — should understand it as a terminus technicus for a five-stage sequential process, not a standalone event. The phrase will not appear in American legal sources with any practical currency, as outlawry by exaction was never transplanted as a functional institution into American procedure.

The key research trap is treating the term as interchangeable with "outlawry" generally. Quinto exactus is a stage-specific procedural term; its appearance in a document signals that four prior exactions have already occurred and that the record is at the threshold of the outlawry declaration. Finding quinto exactus in a source without finding the surrounding procedural context (the prior exactions, the coroners' role) suggests the record is incomplete.

Note also the Blackstone citation discrepancy in the historical sources: Black's 2nd Edition and Burrill both cite Blackstone's Commentaries for this entry, but they give different volume references (8 Bl. Comm. versus 3 Bl. Com.). Burrill's citation to 3 Bl. Com. 283 is the correct reference, as the treatment of outlawry in civil suits appears in Book III of the Commentaries. Researchers relying on the first edition of Black's should verify citations independently.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in close agreement on substance: all three define quinto exactus as the sheriff's return after five successive county court exactions, with outlawry by the coroners as the consequence. The definitions are nearly verbatim across sources, suggesting a settled, narrow meaning with no interpretive controversy.

The principal divergence is the Blackstone citation error noted above. Burrill's citation (3 Bl. Com. 283) is authoritative. Researchers should not follow the "8 Bl. Comm." reference in the first edition of Black's, as Book VIII of the Commentaries does not exist in the standard four-book structure of that work.

None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the earlier stages of the exaction process, the precise mechanics of the county court proclamations, or the distinction between civil and criminal outlawry procedures. For fuller context, Blackstone's Commentaries Book III and historical works on English common law procedure remain the primary sources.

Jurisdictional Note

Quinto exactus is a term of English common law with no operative American equivalent. Outlawry by sequential exaction was not adopted as a going institution in American courts, and the term does not appear in American statutory or case law in any functional sense. Its relevance to American legal research is purely historical and comparative.

QUINTO EXACTUSmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In old practice. Called or exacted the fifth time. A return made by the sheriff, after a defendant had been proclaimed, required, or exacted in five county courts successively, and failed to ap- also recognized by that law, and in the strict character of a Roman citizen. "Roman law originally only recognized one kind of domin- ion, called, emphatically, 'quiritary domin- ion.' Gradually, however, certain real rights arose which, though they failed to satisfy all the elements of the definition of quiritary do- minion, were practically its equivalent, and received from the courts a similar protection. These real rights might fall short of quiritary dominion in three respects: (1) Either in re- spect of the persons in whom they resided; (2) or of the subjects to which they related; or (3) of the title by which they were acquired." In the latter case, the ownership was called "bonitarian," i. e., “the property of a Roman citizen, in a subject capable of quiritary prop- erty, acquired by a title not known to the civil law, but introduced by the prætor and protected by his imperium or supreme ex- ecutive power;" e. g., where res mancipi had been transferred by mere tradition. Poste's Gaius' Inst. 186. Quisquis erit qui vult juris-consultus haberi continuet studium, velit a quo- cunque doceri. Jenk. Cent. Whoever wishes to be a juris-consult, let him con- tinually study, and desire to be taught by every one. Quisquis præsumitur bonus; et semper in dubiis pro reo respondendum. Every one is presumed good; and in doubtful cases the resolution should be ever for the ac- cused.