Definition
A Latin writ of English common law that lay on behalf of a dowress — a widow holding land in dower — or a person held in wardship, to exempt her or them from the obligation to perform suit of court. The writ recognized that certain tenure holders, by reason of their status, were not legally bound to attend the lord's court as a regular incident of their tenancy.
"Suit of court" was the feudal duty owed by a tenant to appear periodically at the lord's court, serving in effect as a constituent of that court's proceedings. Where the law acknowledged that a particular class of tenant — particularly a widow whose land interest derived from dower, or a ward under guardianship — was not subject to this obligation, the writ of sectis non faciendis provided formal legal relief from any demand or distress seeking to compel such attendance.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in historical sources dealing with the feudal tenures of medieval and early modern English law. Researchers encountering it should understand several navigational points.
First, the writ belongs to the dense system of original writs catalogued in registers such as the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.), which Bouvier cites at folio 174. Any effort to trace the writ's procedural history should begin with those registers, not with case reporters.
Second, "sectis" is the genitive plural of "secta" — the suit owed to a court — and researchers working through Latin legal records may encounter variant spellings or abbreviations. The phrase reads literally as "of suits not to be performed."
Third, the writ is closely tied to dower law and wardship, both of which underwent substantial transformation. The feudal incidents of tenure, including suit of court, were largely abolished in England by the Tenures Abolition Act of 1660 (12 Car. II, c. 24), which eliminated military tenures and the obligations running with them. This effectively rendered writs like sectis non faciendis obsolete. Researchers working in sources after the mid-seventeenth century will not find this writ in active use.
Fourth, the writ has no American counterpart. Colonial law did not transplant the feudal court system in the form that made suit of court a live obligation, and no American jurisdiction developed or maintained this writ. References to it in American legal dictionaries are purely definitional, carrying over the English common law inheritance for completeness.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries converge on the essential definition without meaningful divergence. All three identify the writ as lying for a dowress or person in wardship against compelled suit of court, and all attribute the account to Cowell — John Cowell's Interpreter (1607), a standard early glossary of English legal terms. Bouvier adds the Registrum Originale citation and appends, in the same entry block, a definition of "Sectores" (Roman law bidders at auction), which is an unrelated term sharing proximity in the register.
None of the historical dictionaries explain the procedural mechanics of the writ — how it was sued out, what proof was required, or what remedy it carried upon success. For that level of detail, Cowell's Interpreter itself and Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (which catalogs the forms of original writs) would be the appropriate primary sources. Black's second edition reproduces the first edition's language with minor typographical differences and adds nothing substantively new.
The historical record on this writ is thin in secondary sources, reflecting its relatively narrow application and early obsolescence. Researchers should treat dictionary entries on this term as signposts rather than full accounts.
Jurisdictional Note
England only, and obsolete even there by the latter half of the seventeenth century. This writ never took root in American or colonial law and has no modern jurisdictional application anywhere in the common law world.