Definition
Repetitum namium (Latin: "repeated taking") is a term from old English legal practice referring to a second or reciprocal distress — the seizure of a defendant's goods or chattels in retaliation for, or as a substitute for, goods that were wrongfully taken or concealed (eloigned) during a prior distress. The term is synonymous with withernam and describes the remedy available to a distrainor whose originally seized goods had been removed beyond the reach of replevin or recaption.
In practical operation: when a person whose goods were distrained sought replevin but the distrainor had already eloigned (secretly removed) those goods so that they could not be returned, the law authorized a second distress — a repetitum namium — upon other goods of the party who had eloigned them. The second seizure stood in place of the first and served as the functional equivalent of the original distress.
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Common Confusion
Repetitum namium and withernam are effectively synonymous in the historical sources and may be used interchangeably. Researchers should not treat them as distinct remedies. The distinction that occasionally appears — withernam as the writ authorizing the second distress, repetitum namium as the act or result of that distress — is one of form, not substance, and the sources do not apply it consistently. Both terms appear in the same procedural context and reference the same doctrine. See WITHERNAM.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow, archaic term of English procedural practice with no modern operational counterpart. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in three contexts:
First, in historical replevin materials. Repetitum namium is an artifact of the common law writ system governing distress and replevin. It appears in treatises and cases dealing with eloignment — the wrongful concealment or removal of distrained goods — as the remedy triggered by that act. Any research into the history of distress, replevin, or the writ of withernam will intersect this term.
Second, as a cross-reference anchor. The dictionaries uniformly cite 3 Blackstone's Commentaries 148 as the primary authority. Researchers working backward from this term should go directly to Blackstone for doctrinal context. The dictionary entries themselves are thin — they define the term but do not develop the procedure.
Third, as a Latin-form trap. The term appears in Law Latin and is occasionally misread or mis-indexed in older digests. Researchers searching historical indices should also search withernam, nam, and second distress to ensure full retrieval.
The term has no meaningful presence in American law, where distress as a self-help remedy was sharply curtailed or abolished, and the procedural apparatus that generated repetitum namium — including eloignment doctrine and withernam writs — was not transplanted into most American jurisdictions.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement: all define repetitum namium as a repeated, second, or reciprocal distress, and all identify it with withernam. Burrill adds the qualifier "old English practice," which is the most accurate characterization. Rapalje & Lawrence provides the most useful procedural gloss, specifying that the second distress arises "in lieu of the first which was eloigned" — this is the functional key to understanding the term and is implicit but unstated in Black's.
All four sources cite or implicitly rely on 3 Blackstone's Commentaries 148. None of the dictionary entries attempts to develop the procedure further or situate the term within the broader writ system. For researchers, this means the dictionaries confirm the term's meaning and point toward Blackstone but do not substitute for Blackstone.
No source flags any divergence in the term's meaning across time or jurisdiction, which is consistent with its status as a fixed term of art from a now-defunct procedural regime.
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Jurisdictional Note
Repetitum namium is a term of English common law practice. It was not adopted as operative doctrine in American jurisdictions and does not appear in American statutory or case law in any functional sense. Researchers working in English legal history or pre-modern common law will encounter it; researchers working in American law will not.
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