Definition
A writ formerly used in English common law to remove a suit from an inferior court not of record into one of the superior courts of common law. The writ operated most commonly in replevin actions commenced in a sheriff's county court, directing that the record of the proceeding be brought up before a superior tribunal for continued adjudication. The name derives from the Latin for "cause the plaint to be recorded," reflecting the writ's function of transferring a matter that had not yet been formally recorded in the inferior court into a forum where a proper record would be maintained.
Common Confusion
RECORDARI FACIAS LOQUELAM vs. CERTIORARI: Both writs served to remove proceedings from inferior tribunals to superior courts, and historical sources treat them as functional cousins. The practical distinction lay in the nature of the inferior court: recordari facias loquelam was specifically designed for courts not of record, where no formal written record existed to be sent up. Certiorari, by contrast, operated on courts of record, commanding the inferior tribunal to certify and transmit its existing record. Because recordari facias loquelam became obsolete while certiorari survived and expanded, researchers encountering removal disputes in historical sources involving non-record courts should not assume certiorari was the only available mechanism — the earlier writ may be the operative one.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to a narrow class of obsolete common law process writs that modern indexes rarely surface. Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century English and early American procedural materials — particularly replevin disputes arising in sheriff's courts, hundred courts, or other local jurisdictions without formal record-keeping — may encounter references to this writ without any contextual gloss. Several navigational points apply.
First, the full Latin form of the writ is recordari facias loquelam, meaning "cause the plaint to be recorded." Historical sources, including Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (the primary classical authority cited by Rapalje & Lawrence at F.N.B. 70), use both the full form and the abbreviated shorthand. Corpus searches should account for variant spellings and truncations.
Second, the writ is almost entirely absent from American practice. Its displacement began early, as American states either consolidated removal mechanisms under certiorari or statutory procedure, or simply never transplanted this particular writ from English practice. Finding it invoked in American sources after the late eighteenth century would be unusual and warrants careful attention to whether the drafter was borrowing English forms.
Third, researchers tracing the history of certiorari jurisdiction over non-record tribunals should treat recordari facias loquelam as part of the procedural prehistory of that doctrine. Courts and commentators that discussed the limits of certiorari's reach were often implicitly working around the gap left by the obsolescence of recordari facias loquelam.
Fourth, replevin practice is the most common substantive context. Researchers in early property, livestock, and goods-recovery disputes will encounter the writ more frequently than those working in other subject areas.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence is the primary source available here, and their entry is characteristically terse: a single sentence of functional definition, a citation to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium at folio 70, and a frank declaration of obsolescence with a cross-reference to certiorari. The entry does not analyze the writ's procedural mechanics, its relationship to common law pleading in replevin, or the chronology of its disappearance. Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium remains the foundational authority and should be consulted directly for the classical form and procedural requirements of the writ. Blackstone's Commentaries address the broader landscape of prerogative and removal writs but do not treat recordari facias loquelam at length, consistent with its declining relevance by the eighteenth century. No American legal dictionary in the standard corpus provides a materially fuller treatment, confirming that by the time American legal literature was systematized, the writ had effectively passed out of use.
Jurisdictional Note
The writ is an English common law instrument with no meaningful American statutory or case law footprint. Jurisdictions that received English common law by reception statute may technically have inherited the writ, but it was not actively practiced in American courts and should be treated as English procedural history for research purposes.