Lectionary Calendar
Thursday, April 3rd, 2025
the Fourth Week of Lent
There are 17 days til Easter!
Attention!
For 10¢ a day you can enjoy StudyLight.org ads
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!

Bible Encyclopedias
Posse Comitatus

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Search for…
or
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
Prev Entry
Positivism
Next Entry
Possession
Resource Toolbox
Additional Links

POSSE COMITATUS (Lat. "power of a county"), a summons to every male in the county, between the ages of fifteen and twenty, to be ready and apparelled, at the command of the sheriff and the cry of the county, to maintain peace and pursue felons. Ecclesiastical persons, peers and such as laboured under any infirmity were not compellable to attend. Owing to the establishment of county police, the sheriff does not now pursue felons, but by the Sheriffs Act (1887, sec. 8, sub-sec. 2) the calling out of the posse comitatus is expressly authorized if the sheriff finds any resistance in the execution of a writ. In view of the sheriff's duty to raise, if necessary, the posse comitatus it is no answer by him, for non-execution of a writ, to say that he was resisted.

See P. E. Mather, Sheriff Law.

Bibliography Information
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Posse Comitatus'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/​encyclopedias/​eng/​bri/​p/posse-comitatus.html. 1910.
 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile