Rescript

In Canon Law. A term including any form of apostolical letter emanating from the pope. The answer of the pope in writing. Diet. Droit Can. In Civil Law. The answer of the prince, at the request of the parties, respecting some matter in dispute between them, or to magistrates, in relation to some doubtful matter submitted to him. They were binding on the court in that suit; originally, in some cases at least, they seem to have been binding as precedents.

Gray, Nat. & Sources of Law 192.

The rescript was differently denominated according to the character of those who sought it. They were called adnotations or sulmotations, when the answer was given at the request of private citizens; letters or epistles, when he answered the consultation of magistrates; pragmatic sanctions, when he answered a corporation, the citizens of a province, or a municipality. See Code. At Common Law. A counterpart. In Massachusetts it is used to denote the statement of the decision of the supreme judicial court as an appellate tribunal, add the accompanying brief statement of the reasons for the decision sent to the court from which the case was brought.

RESCRIPTI0N.

In French Law. A rescription is a letter by which the maker requests some one to pay a certain sum of money, or to account for him to a third person for it. Pothier, Contr.-dc Change, n.

225.

According to this definition, bills of exchange are a species of rescription. The difference appears to be this, — that a bill of exchange is given when there has been a contract of exchange between the drawer and the payee; whereas the rescription is sometimes given in payment of a debt, and at other times it is lent to the payee.