Definition
A Latin writ directing that the record of an indictment, together with all process issued upon it, be transferred out of a lower or inferior court into the Court of Queen's Bench (or King's Bench). The writ functioned as a removal mechanism, extracting the indictment record in its entirety so that the higher court could exercise jurisdiction over the matter. The name reflects the operative mechanism: the record was transferred by or according to its tenor — that is, its full and exact text — rather than by summary or abstract.
Common Confusion
Rapalje & Lawrence list this writ under the heading TENDO, which may cause researchers to conflate it with a broader category of removal writs or to overlook it when searching under its full Latin title. The entry as printed in that source is compressed and easy to misread as a general description of court removal procedure rather than as a discrete, named writ. Researchers should also distinguish this writ from CERTIORARI, which is the more familiar removal mechanism that survived into modern practice. TENORE INDICTAMENTI MIT was a specific writ operating on indictment records; certiorari operated more broadly and became the dominant instrument for transferring records between courts as common law procedure modernized.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in early English practice sources and in digests and abridgments drawn from them. Its presence in the Law Mind corpus is likely limited to historical treatises, form books, and writs registers from the period when the Court of Queen's Bench actively used specialized removal writs rather than relying on certiorari alone.
Several navigational traps are worth flagging. First, the writ is indexed inconsistently across historical sources. Rapalje & Lawrence treat it under TENDO rather than under the full writ title, meaning keyword searches on TENORE INDICTAMENTI MIT may miss relevant entries and vice versa. Second, the writ's practical context — removal into Queen's Bench specifically — ties it to a jurisdictional configuration that no longer exists. Researchers working on the history of the Queen's Bench or on the supervisory jurisdiction of that court over inferior courts will find this writ relevant, but it has no living procedural analog in American courts. Third, the Registers of Writs (Registrum Omnium Brevium and its predecessors) are the primary source documents for this writ's form and use; Rapalje & Lawrence cite Reg. Orig. 69 directly. Any researcher attempting to trace the writ's precise form should consult the Register of Original Writs rather than relying on secondary digests, which typically offer only compressed descriptions.
The writ belongs to a family of specialized Queen's Bench removal instruments that were displaced over time as certiorari became the standard vehicle for record removal. Understanding TENORE INDICTAMENTI MIT is therefore useful not just as an isolated term but as a data point in the broader historical story of how the supervisory jurisdiction of superior courts over inferior courts was consolidated and eventually rationalized.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence provide the only entry identified in the Law Mind source dictionaries. Their treatment is notably brief — a single sentence identifying the writ's function and the citation to the Register of Originals — and appears under the compressed heading TENDO rather than under the full writ name. This placement reflects a common editorial practice in nineteenth-century legal dictionaries of grouping related Latin writ terms under a shortened or root form, which creates indexing difficulties for modern researchers.
No elaboration on the writ's procedural requirements, the circumstances under which it issued, or its relationship to certiorari is offered in the source entry. The citation to Reg. Orig. 69 is the most useful navigational pointer the entry provides. Historical sources that treat the Queen's Bench's jurisdiction more fully — including Blackstone's Commentaries and the older abridgments of Viner and Comyns — may provide additional context for the writ's operational use, though they may not index it under this precise title.
The adjacent entries in Rapalje & Lawrence (TENORE PRÆSENTIUM for the phrase meaning "by the tenor of these presents," and TENSERIÆ for a form of ancient military tax) confirm that this portion of the dictionary is a compressed treatment of Latin legal terms rather than a developed treatment of any single doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is an artifact of English common law practice centered on the Court of Queen's Bench. It has no recognized equivalent in American federal or state procedure. Researchers encountering it in American colonial-era sources should treat it as evidence of the direct transplantation of English writ practice rather than as a term with independent American doctrinal development.