Definition
A writ in English law directed to the mayor of the staple, commanding him to certify to the Lord Chancellor the contents of a statute staple that had been taken before him, where the party holding the instrument detains it and refuses to produce it. The writ compelled the responsible official to supply the record of the debt obligation to the chancery so that proceedings could continue despite the obligor's or holder's refusal to surrender the document. Parallel writs of the same character existed to certify a statute merchant and applied in other analogous circumstances where a party's possession of a document threatened to obstruct official process.
The writ belongs to the family of certificatory writs — instruments that did not themselves enforce a debt or punish a party, but instead secured an official record so that other legal machinery could operate. Its target was the mayor of the staple, a commercial officer with authority over the staple towns where merchants formally acknowledged debts under the law merchant.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow historical writ with no modern survival. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in early English chancery and commercial law sources, and its practical significance lies in what it reveals about the staple system rather than in any continuing doctrinal importance.
Several navigational points are worth noting:
First, tione stapule is inseparable from the statute staple. The writ existed solely to address obstruction within that system. Any research into this writ requires parallel engagement with statute staple, statute merchant, and the role of the mayor of the staple — the writ cannot be understood in isolation from those institutions.
Second, the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) is the primary historical source for the writ's form and existence. Researchers working in early chancery materials should expect the writ to appear in formulary collections rather than in reported case law, since writs of this type were administrative instruments rather than common law actions producing appellate records.
Third, the phrase "divers others cases" in Bouvier signals that certificatory writs directed to mayors and other officials were a recognizable genus in English practice, not unique to the staple context. A researcher finding a cognate writ in manuscript sources should approach it with the same framework: identify the official commanded, the instrument or fact to be certified, and the obstruction that prompted the writ.
Fourth, because the staple system was wound down over centuries, this writ effectively disappeared from active practice well before the modern era. Bouvier preserves it as a historical entry; it should not be sought in American practice or in post-staple English commercial law.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the sole source in the present corpus for this term, and its treatment is concise and reliable as far as it goes. Bouvier accurately identifies the official commanded (the mayor of the staple), the recipient of the certification (the Lord Chancellor), the triggering condition (the party's detention and refusal to produce the statute staple), and the analogous writs (statute merchant and others). The citation to Reg. Orig. 148 and to Black's Law Dictionary is consistent with how Bouvier handles archaic English writs — pointing researchers to the formularies where the writ's text was preserved.
What Bouvier does not supply is any account of how frequently the writ was used, what circumstances in staple practice most commonly produced a party's refusal to surrender the instrument, or how the Lord Chancellor proceeded once certification was made. Those questions require engagement with the broader literature on the staple towns and the law merchant. Historical dictionaries of this period uniformly treat tione stapule as a term of art requiring no common-language gloss, and that treatment is appropriate — the term has no meaningful existence outside the specialized context of English commercial law.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively a creature of English law and has no American equivalent. The staple system was never transplanted to the American colonies in operative form, and no parallel writ appears in American practice. Research is confined to English sources.
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