Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "that clergymen should not be chosen" or "that clerks shall not be elected." In historical English law, this term designated a writ — also described under the related heading *In Officio Ballivi* — available to a clergyman or clerk who was being compelled, by virtue of land he held, to serve in a secular administrative office such as bailiff, beadle, or reeve. The writ operated as an exemption, relieving the clerk from the burden of such service on the ground of his clerical status.
The underlying principle was that clergy occupied a distinct legal estate — the ecclesiastical — and were not to be conscripted into the administrative machinery of secular manorial or local governance. The exemption was not a privilege of rank so much as a structural separation between the clerical order and lay administrative obligation.
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Common Confusion
The term "clerk" in this context does not mean a court clerk or administrative official in the modern sense. In medieval English usage, *clericus* could denote anyone in clerical orders — from minor orders through holy orders — and, more broadly, any literate person associated with the Church's administrative apparatus. The exemption this writ protected was tied to clerical status, not to any particular office. Researchers should not read modern connotations of "clerk" back into this material.
This writ is also distinct from benefit of clergy. Benefit of clergy (*beneficium clericale*) allowed clergymen convicted of felonies to be transferred to ecclesiastical jurisdiction for punishment. *Quod Clerici Non Eligantur* operated before any offense — it was a prophylactic exemption from compelled service, not a post-conviction procedural device.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term presents a classic research trap: neither Black's first nor second edition carries an entry under *Quod Clerici Non Eligantur* directly. The relevant material appears instead under *In Officio Ballivi*, a related but formally distinct writ heading. A researcher searching the historical dictionaries alphabetically under "Q" will find nothing. The substantive content is shelved under "I." This cross-reference gap is not flagged in either edition.
The writ belongs to a family of medieval English writs governing clerical exemptions from secular duties. Researchers working in ecclesiastical law, manorial administration, or the history of benefit of clergy will need to treat this term as a node connecting several overlapping bodies of historical law: the privileges of the clerical estate, the structure of local office-holding under feudal tenure, and the Register of Original Writs (*Registrum Omnium Brevium* / *Reg. Orig.*), which is the primary documentary source cited by both Black's editions.
The *Reg. Orig.* reference (folio 187) is the anchor citation for this writ family. Researchers should be aware that the Register of Original Writs exists in multiple manuscript and printed versions and that folio numbering may vary across editions. Black's does not specify which edition or recension it follows.
This term will rarely appear in post-medieval case law or statutory research. Its relevance is almost entirely historical and doctrinal — useful for understanding the separation of clerical and lay obligations in pre-Reformation England, and for contextualizing later debates about clergy exemptions and disestablishment. It has no living procedural equivalent in modern Anglo-American law.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's first and second editions handle this material identically, placing it under *In Officio Ballivi* rather than under the phrase *Quod Clerici Non Eligantur* itself. The definitions across both editions are word-for-word identical, suggesting the second edition carried the entry forward without revision or expansion. Neither edition provides doctrinal elaboration beyond the single-sentence description of the writ's operation and the *Reg. Orig.* citation.
What the historical dictionaries miss: neither edition contextualizes the writ within the broader framework of clerical privilege or explains the relationship between this exemption and the more famous doctrine of benefit of clergy (*beneficium clericale*). The two concepts are distinct — benefit of clergy operated as a criminal procedure defense, while this writ was an administrative exemption — but a researcher unfamiliar with the field could conflate them. Neither edition addresses the theological rationale for the exemption, the class of "clerks" covered (which, in medieval usage, could include minor orders and educated laymen in clerical employment, not only ordained priests), or the writ's eventual obsolescence.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ was specific to the English common law system and has no direct counterpart in Scots law, civil law jurisdictions, or American law. It is of historical interest only. No American jurisdiction has ever recognized or applied this writ.
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