Catalogue description Records relating to Outlawry

In personal actions initiated in the Court of Common Pleas by writ, a plaintiff could proceed to the outlawry of a defendant who failed to enter an appearance in court as a result of the original writ or subsequent judicial writs of capias ad respondendum. He would do so by securing the issue of a writ of exigi facias (exigent), which ordered the sheriff to require the defendant to appear at the county court or, in London, the Court of Husting. If he failed to appear at five successive courts he was outlawed.

The exigi facias was a judicial writ issued in Common Pleas by an official called the exigenter. From 1512 it was required by statute (4 Hen VIII, c 4, and subsequent acts down to 31 Eliz I, c 3) to be accompanied by a writ of proclamation bearing the same date, requiring the sheriff to make proclamation of the intent to proceed to outlawry of the defendant in the appropriate county court and quarter sessions, and in the parish church or chapel nearest to the home of the defendant, and to make a return as to the times and places where it had been done. On their return, the exigent came to the clerk of the outlawries, while the proclamation was filed by the exigenter. A variant of the exigent was the writ of allocatur exigent, which, when the period between the date of the issue of the exigent and its return day was insufficient for the holding of two county courts, directed the sheriff to allow those which had already passed and at which the defendant had not appeared to count towards the process of outlawry undertaken under a new exigent.

A defendant in Common Pleas who wished to halt the process of outlawry could do so by obtaining a writ of supersedeas from the exigenter if he first filed a special bail, by which he undertook to put in an appearance. If the process of outlawry was completed, a writ of capias utlagatum would be issued for the outlaw's arrest. If it was effective, he had to give bail to appear and reverse the outlawry, or remain in custody until he reversed it, obtained a pardon, or was relieved under an insolvency act. If a special writ of capias utlagatum was issued, the sheriff was required to ascertain the value of the outlaw's goods and chattels by means of an inquisition, and take them into his hands. The writ and inquisition were returnable to the clerk of the outlawries, and then filed by the custos brevium; further proceedings were then taken by the Exchequer, which was sent a transcript.