DE ANNO BISSEXTILI

Of the bissextile or leap year. The title of a statute passed In the twenty-first year of Henry III., which in fact however, is nothing more than a sort of writ or direction to the justices of the bench, instructing them how the extraordinary day in the leap year was to be reckoned in cases where persons had a day to appear at the distance of a year, as on the essoin de mala lecti, and the like. It was thereby directed that the additional day should, together with that which went before, be reckoned only as one, and so, of course, within the preceding year. 1 Reeve, Eng. Law, 266.