Definition
A writ directed to justices or commissioners of assize, forbidding them from proceeding in a particular case. The writ functioned as a prohibition at the assize level, halting proceedings before a panel that would otherwise have jurisdiction to hear the matter.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To assemble, bring together, collect, or arrange; also, to coagulate or curdle milk. As a conjunction or adverb in archaic English: together.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Together" (obsolete). Cited in Spenser: "All in that city sam."
The common English meaning — gathering, joining, or assembling — bears no relationship to the legal writ of the same name. The legal term is a discrete term of art from the writ system and should not be read through the lens of its ordinary English cognate.
Why It Matters in Research
SAM is a rare and narrow entry that appears almost exclusively in writ registers and formulary texts of medieval and early modern English practice. Researchers encountering the term in historical pleading records, assize rolls, or writs of prohibition will find it poorly indexed in most secondary sources. Black's second edition is among the few American legal dictionaries to note it at all, and its entry is characteristically terse, pointing only to the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) for its procedural home.
The practical research trap is misidentification: a researcher unfamiliar with the term may overlook it as a proper name, a scribal abbreviation, or an artifact of Latin contractions. The Latin dictionary notation — sam as a form of suam (accusative feminine singular of suus, "his/her/their own") — adds a layer of confusion, as Latin case endings in manuscript sources could cause SAM to appear in contexts where it is grammatical Latin rather than a writ name.
Because SAM functioned within the assize system, understanding it requires familiarity with the structure of the English assize courts and the broader family of prohibitory writs (certiorari, prohibition, supersedeas). It is a term that rarely travels alone in the records; its appearance typically signals a jurisdictional dispute or a superior court intervention in local proceedings.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) is the primary American dictionary source for this term and provides the core definition: a writ forbidding the justices from holding an assize in a particular case, citing Reg. Orig. 221. The entry is minimal, consistent with how Black's treats obscure writs of the English formulary tradition that had no meaningful American reception.
Earlier English legal dictionaries and glossaries of writ practice are the deeper well for this term. Researchers working with it seriously will need access to the Registrum Omnium Brevium itself, a compiled register of chancery writs that served as a practitioner's reference in medieval and early modern England. The writ of SAM belongs to the category of writs of prohibition or suspension directed at the assize justices — a category that included other, better-known writs such as ne admittas and recordari facias.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any account of how frequently SAM was actually used, how it interacted with the more prominent writs of prohibition, or whether it had any analogue in ecclesiastical court practice. The historical record is thin, and secondary commentary is sparse.
Jurisdictional Note
SAM has no reception in American law. It is a purely English common law writ tied to the assize system, which was not transplanted to the American colonies or states. Researchers will encounter it only in English historical legal materials.