Legal Definitions - filacium

Filacium is an archaic legal term, originating from Latin, that refers to a file or bundle of legal documents. Historically, this often meant writs, pleadings, or other court papers that were physically strung together on a thread or string for organization and preservation. In essence, it represented a consolidated collection of related legal instruments.

Here are some examples to illustrate the concept of a filacium:

• Imagine a court clerk in 17th-century England. After a day of proceedings, the clerk would gather all the newly issued writs, petitions, and sworn affidavits pertaining to a particular case. To keep them organized and prevent loss, the clerk would pierce a hole through the corner of each document and thread them onto a piece of string, creating a neat bundle. This physical bundle of case documents, strung together, would have been referred to as a filacium.

• While physical strings are no longer used, the concept of a filacium persists in modern legal practice. Consider a contemporary law firm managing a complex litigation case. All the discovery documents, motions, court orders, and correspondence related to that single case are meticulously organized within a dedicated digital folder on the firm's server, or in a physical case binder. This collection, though not physically strung, serves the same purpose as a historical filacium: a consolidated, organized bundle of all relevant legal documents for a specific matter.

• In medieval English courts, a common practice was to maintain a filacium of all the *original writs* issued by the chancery for a given term. These writs were the initial commands that commenced legal actions. A clerk would carefully collect all the original writs for, say, the Michaelmas term, string them together, and label the bundle. This specific collection of original writs, bound together for administrative purposes, constituted a filacium.