Sir William Blackstone

Access

During coverture, access of the husband shall be presumed, unless the contrary be shown.

Acquire

Descent is the title whereby a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his estate, by right of representation, as his heir at law.

Adjoin

When one man's land adjoins to another's.

Affeer

Amercements . . . were affeered by the judges.

Alienee

It the alienee enters and keeps possession.

Amphibious

Not in free and common socage, but in this amphibious subordinate class of villein socage.

Archdeaconry

Every diocese is divided into archdeaconries.

Assess

This sum is assessed and raised upon individuals by commissioners in the act.

Attaint

Upon sufficient proof attainted of some open act by men of his own condition.

Bail

The bail must be real, substantial bondsmen.

Excessive bail ought not to be required.

Bastardize

The law is so indulgent as not to bastardize the child, if born, though not begotten, in lawful wedlock.

Belong

Bastards also are settled in the parishes to which the mothers belong.

Bulwark

The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense, . . . the floating bulwark of our island.

Burglarious

To come down a chimney is held a burglarious entry.

Cancel

A deed may be avoided by delivering it up to be cancelled; that is, to have lines drawn over it in the form of latticework or cancelli; though the phrase is now used figuratively for any manner of obliterating or defacing it.

Certify

The judges shall certify their opinion to the chancellor, and upon such certificate the decree is usually founded.

Clergy

If convicted of a clergyable felony, he is entitled equally to his clergy after as before conviction.

Commonable

Commonable beasts are either beasts of the plow, or such as manure the ground.

commonalty

The commonalty, like the nobility, are divided into several degrees.

Commons

The word commons in its present ordinary signification comprises all the people who are under the rank of peers.

Commorancy

Commorancy consists in usually lying there.

Commorant

All freeholders within the precinct . . . and all persons commorant therein.

Commutation

Suits are allowable in the spiritual courts for money agreed to be given as a commutation for penance.

Compact

Now the bright sun compacts the precious stone.

The law of nations depends on mutual compacts, treaties, leagues, etc.

Compass

Compassing and imagining the death of the king are synonymous terms; compassing signifying the purpose or design of the mind or will, and not, as in common speech, the carrying such design to effect.

Composition

Cleared by composition with their creditors.

Contingent

If a contingent legacy be left to any one when he attains, or if he attains, the age of twenty-one.

Conviction

Conviction may accrue two ways.

Coparcener

All the coparceners together make but one heir, and have but one estate among them.

Corruption

Corruption of blood can be removed only by act of Parliament.

Criminality

This is by no means the only criterion of criminality.

Crown

Parliament may be dissolved by the demise of the crown.

Deanery

Each archdeaconry is divided into rural deaneries, and each deanery is divided into parishes.

Depasture

Cattle, to graze and departure in his grounds.

derogatory

Acts of Parliament derogatory from the power of subsequent Parliaments bind not.

Determine

Estates may determine on future contingencies.

Dilapidate

If the bishop, parson, or vicar, etc., dilapidates the buildings, or cuts down the timber of the patrimony.

Disable

An attainder of the ancestor corrupts the blood, and disables his children to inherit.

Disafforest

By charter 9 Henry III. many forests were disafforested.

Disappropriate

The appropriation may be severed, and the church become disappropriate, two ways.

Appropriations of the several parsonages . . . would heave been, by the rules of the common law, disappropriated.

Dissolution

Dissolution is the civil death of Parliament.

Distress

The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.

District

These districts which between the tropics lie.

Eloign

The sheriff may return that the goods or beasts are eloigned.

Extinguish

This extinguishes my right to the reversion.

Feudatory

The grantee . . . was styled the feudatory or vassal.

Figure

Gentlemen of the best figure in the county.

Forfeitable

For the future, uses shall be subject to the statutes of mortmain, and forfeitable, like the lands themselves.

Fowl

Such persons as may lawfully hunt, fish, or fowl.

Full

Had the throne been full, their meeting would not have been regular.

Fumage

Fumage, or fuage, vulgarly called smoke farthings.

Game

Those species of animals . . . distinguished from the rest by the well-known appellation of game.

Guardian

Of the several species of guardians, the first are guardians by nature. -- viz., the father and (in some cases) the mother of the child.

Heresy

A second offense is that of heresy, which consists not in a total denial of Christianity, but of some its essential doctrines, publicly and obstinately avowed.

Husband

The husband and wife are one person in law.

Imply

When a man employs a laborer to work for him, . . . the act of hiring implies an obligation and a promise that he shall pay him a reasonable reward for his services.

Imprison ment

Every confinement of the person is an imprisonment, whether it be in a common prison, or in a private house, or even by foreibly detaining one in the public streets.

Improve

The court seldom fails to improve the opportunity.

Inheritable

By attainder . . . the blood of the person attainted is so corrupted as to be rendered no longer inheritable.

The eldest daughter of the king is also alone inheritable to the crown on failure of issue male.

Inquisition

The justices in eyre had it formerly in charge to make inquisition concerning them by a jury of the county.

Investiture

The grant of land or a feud was perfected by the ceremony of corporal investiture, or open delivery of possession.

Itinerant

The king's own courts were then itinerant, being kept in the king's palace, and removing with his household in those royal progresses which he continually made.

Lurk

The defendant lurks and wanders about in Berks.

Magistrate

Of magistrates some also are supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the state resides; others are subordinate.

Maim

By the ancient law of England he that maimed any man whereby he lost any part of his body, was sentenced to lose the like part.

Man

The vassal, or tenant, kneeling, ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands between those of his lord, professed that he did become his man from that day forth, of life, limb, and earthly honor.

Municipal

Municipal law is properly defined to be a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state.

Nonuser

An office may be forfeited by misuser or nonuser.

Optional

Original writs are either optional or peremptory.

Ouster

Ouster of the freehold is effected by abatement, intrusion, disseizin, discontinuance, or deforcement.

Pervade

That labyrinth is easily pervaded.

Poll

All soldiers quartered in place are to remove . . . and not to return till one day after the poll is ended.

Present

The patron of a church may present his clerk to a parsonage or vicarage; that is, may offer him to the bishop of the diocese to be instituted.

Presentation

If the bishop admits the patron's presentation, the clerk so admitted is next to be instituted by him.

Presume

Every man is to be presumed innocent till he is proved to be guilty.

Private

A private person may arrest a felon.

Proxy

Every peer . . . may make another lord of parliament his proxy, to vote for him in his absence.

Pulsation

By the Cornelian law, pulsation as well as verberation is prohibited.

Rebut

The plaintiff may answer the rejoinder by a surrejoinder; on which the defendant may rebut.

Remedial

Statutes are declaratory or remedial.

Remit

In the case the law remits him to his ancient and more certain right.

Render

In those early times the king's household was supported by specific renders of corn and other victuals from the tenants of the demains.

Repleader

Whenever a repleader is granted, the pleadings must begin de novo.

Republication

If there be many testaments, the last overthrows all the former; but the republication of a former will revokes one of a later date, and establishes the first.

Republish

Subsecquent to the purchase or contract, the devisor republished his will.

Reputation

The security of his reputation or good name.

Rescue

The rescue of a prisoner from the court is punished with perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture of goods.

Reseize

The sheriff is commanded to reseize the land and all the chattels thereon, and keep the same in his custody till the arrival of the justices of assize.

Retain

An executor may retain a debt due to him from the testator.

Scour

If my neighbor ought to scour a ditch.

Sequester

Formerly the goods of a defendant in chancery were, in the last resort, sequestered and detained to enforce the decrees of the court. And now the profits of a benefice are sequestered to pay the debts of ecclesiastics.

Shire

An indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or shire.

Shrievalty

It was ordained by 28 Edward I that the people shall have election of sheriff in every shire where the shrievalty is not of inheritance.

Sobriety

Public sobriety is a relative duty.

Some

Some theoretical writers allege that there was a time when there was no such thing as society.

Most gentlemen of property, at some period or other of their lives, are ambitious of representing their county in Parliament.

Spirituality

During the vacancy of a see, the archbishop is guardian of the spiritualities thereof.

Squib

The making and selling of fireworks, and squibs . . . is punishable.

Stannary

The stannary courts of Devonshire and Cornwall, for the administration of justice among the tinners therein, are also courts of record.

State

Municipal law is a rule of conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state.

Subinfeudation

The widow is immediate tenant to the heir, by a kind of subinfeudation, or undertenancy.

Subject-matter

As to the subject-matter, words are always to be understood as having a regard thereto.

Successor

A gift to a corporation, either of lands or of chattels, without naming their successors, vests an absolute property in them so lond as the corporation subsists.

Suit

In England the several suits, or remedial instruments of justice, are distinguished into three kinds -- actions personal, real, and mixed.

Supremacy

The usurped power of the pope being destroyed, the crown was restored to its supremacy over spiritual men and causes.

Tenement

The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a “tenant,” and the manner of possession is called “tenure.”

Venue

The twelve men who are to try the cause must be of the same venue where the demand is made.

Visitor

The king is the visitor of all lay corporations.

Vouch

He vouches the tenant in tail, who vouches over the common vouchee.

Wardship

Wardship is incident to tenure in socage.

Watch

Ward, guard, or custodia, is chiefly applied to the daytime, in order to apprehend rioters, and robbers on the highway . . . Watch, is properly applicable to the night only, . . . and it begins when ward ends, and ends when that begins.