Definition
A writ commanding the sheriff to summon a jury of matrons — a panel of respectable women — to carry out the examination directed by a companion writ, the *de ventre inspiciendo*. The writ's name translates roughly as "you are to cause to come so many matrons," and its function was purely procedural: it provided the mechanism for assembling the female jury that the substantive writ of *de ventre inspiciendo* required but did not itself convene.
The writ operated in tandem with *de ventre inspiciendo*, which issued when a question arose as to whether a woman was pregnant — most commonly when a convicted woman pleaded pregnancy to delay execution, or when a widow claimed to be carrying her deceased husband's heir in order to protect an anticipated inheritance interest. Once the court awarded *de ventre inspiciendo*, the *venire facias tot matron* went to the sheriff directing him to empanel the jury of matrons who would conduct the physical examination and return their finding to the court.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will almost never appear as a standalone subject in historical records. Researchers are far more likely to encounter it as a brief procedural notation in older common law reports, plea rolls, or sheriff's returns, embedded within proceedings centered on *de ventre inspiciendo* or the plea of pregnancy (*peine forte et dure* and execution records are particularly relevant contexts). The writ itself generated little independent doctrine; its interest lies in what it reveals about the gendered structure of early common law procedure — specifically, the use of lay female expertise in a forum that otherwise excluded women entirely.
The distinction between the two writs matters for corpus navigation. Indexing in older digests and abridgments is inconsistent: some entries appear under *ventre inspiciendo*, others under *venire facias*, and the combined procedural unit is sometimes described without naming either writ explicitly. A researcher who encounters only one writ in a source should assume the other was also issued; the absence of one from a record likely reflects indexing or survival gaps, not a departure from standard practice.
The writ belongs to an era of common law procedure that was effectively abolished in England by the mid-nineteenth century and never took firm root in most American jurisdictions, which handled the pregnancy plea through different procedural mechanisms. Corpus materials on this writ will therefore be concentrated in English sources predating approximately 1850, with American materials being sparse and largely derivative.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje and Lawrence give the writ a compressed but accurate treatment: "a writ to summon a jury of matrons to execute the writ de ventre inspiciendo." This definition correctly identifies the writ's dependent, instrumental character — it executes rather than initiates. The entry is thin by necessity; there is simply not much doctrine to report. The writ was a creature of procedural mechanics, not substantive law.
What historical dictionaries collectively fail to convey is the practical texture of how juries of matrons operated — the standards applied, the weight courts gave to their findings, and the procedural consequences when matrons disagreed. That material lives in case reporters and treatises (Blackstone's *Commentaries*, Book IV, addresses the pregnancy plea and the jury of matrons in the capital context) rather than in dictionary entries, and researchers needing more than the bare procedural framework must move beyond lexical sources.
Jurisdictional Note
The writ is a product of English common law and has no meaningful independent existence in American law. Some early American jurisdictions recognized the pregnancy plea and the jury of matrons in capital cases, but the specific writ form was generally not adopted. Research into American equivalents should focus on the substantive plea rather than the writ mechanics.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: VENTRE INSPICIENDO, DE