Definition
A writ of exemption by which a clerk — that is, a person in holy orders or otherwise recognized as a clergyman — could obtain relief from being compelled to serve in a secular public office such as bailiff, beadle, or reeve. The writ took its name from its operative command: that clerks not be chosen (elected or appointed) to such offices. Where a clerk held land that would ordinarily subject him to the obligations of a particular local office, this writ provided a formal legal remedy to excuse him from that service on account of his clerical status.
The title as it appears in Rapalje & Lawrence is rendered in abbreviated and variant form as "TUR IN OFFICIO BALLIVI, &c.," reflecting the condensed register-book style of the original source. The full Latin phrase is more precisely rendered as Quod Clerici Non Eligantur in Officio Ballivi — "that clerks shall not be elected to the office of bailiff" — though the writ extended beyond the bailiff's office to encompass comparable local administrative roles.
Why It Matters in Research
This term presents a significant identification problem for researchers. Rapalje & Lawrence list the entry under a truncated heading that omits the recognizable Latin opening, which means a researcher searching for the full phrase will not find the entry by direct lookup in that dictionary. Awareness of this truncation is essential when working with Rapalje & Lawrence on writs of this class.
The writ belongs to a larger family of medieval English exemption writs rooted in the privileges of the clergy — a body of law that intersected canon law, common law, and royal prerogative throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Researchers working on clerical privilege, the boundary between ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction, or the history of compelled public service will find this writ contextually important, though primary treatment in English legal history belongs to the Register of Writs (Registrum Brevium) and related chancery sources rather than to the American legal dictionaries that reproduce it. Rapalje & Lawrence cite the Reg. Orig. 187 as authority, referring to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, the standard printed register of original writs.
Because this writ had no continuing vitality in American law, it appears in American legal dictionaries solely as a historical reference. Researchers should treat it as a point of entry into English ecclesiastical and common law history rather than as a term with operative significance in any jurisdiction surveyed by American sources.
The writ's practical scope — triggered by land tenure creating eligibility for local office — also connects it to the broader medieval law of tenure and the obligations that attached to holding land in particular communities. Researchers tracing the relationship between property holding and public duty in English legal history will encounter this writ alongside others of the exemption class.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence provide the only entry among the Law Mind shelf sources. Their treatment is brief and functional: the writ lay for a clerk who, by reason of land he held, was made or was about to be made bailiff, beadle, reeve, or similar officer, and its purpose was to secure exemption from that service. The citation to Reg. Orig. 187 anchors the entry in the Register of Original Writs, which is the correct primary source for a writ of this character.
The entry is notable for what it omits. It does not address the theoretical basis of the exemption — the longstanding principle that persons in clerical orders owed duties to a separate jurisdiction and were therefore incompatible with the burdens of secular administrative office. It also does not distinguish between the several offices named, all of which were subordinate local offices of an essentially manorial or hundred character in medieval English administration. Researchers requiring fuller treatment must go beyond the American dictionary tradition to English sources such as Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium or Blackstone's treatment of the privileges of the clergy.
No other Law Mind shelf dictionary provides an independent entry for this term.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is purely a historical English common law instrument with no American counterpart or continuing application. It is relevant only in the context of medieval and early modern English legal history.