Definition
An abbreviation used in Latin-language legal manuscripts and early English pleading records. ACCO is a contracted form of two Latin terms: (1) actio (action, meaning a legal action or suit), and (2) actionem (the accusative case of actio, used in the body of pleading texts). The abbreviation appears in early pleading records and legal manuscripts where scribal economy required shortening common Latin terms.
Common Confusion
ACCO should not be confused with ACCON or ACCONEM as independent terms — they are grammatical variants of the same abbreviation, not separate legal concepts. The confusion most likely to arise is treating ACCO as an unrecognized word rather than an abbreviation, leading a researcher to search for a legal term that does not exist as a standalone entry in modern sources.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with early English pleading records, Year Books, or manuscript sources will encounter ACCO as a scribal abbreviation rather than a standalone legal term. Its importance is navigational: misreading or failing to recognize the abbreviation can obscure references to the underlying legal action being pleaded or described.
Two distinct forms appear in the sources. ACCO standing alone typically abbreviates actio (nominative case, used as the subject of a sentence or clause). ACCONEM abbreviates actionem (accusative case, used as the object). Recognizing which grammatical form is intended matters when reconstructing the meaning of a pleading passage. Burrill cites Townshend's Pleadings at pages 26 and 166–167 as the primary authority locating both forms in context.
Researchers using the Law Mind corpus should treat ACCO as a finding aid entry — a pointer to materials discussing actio and the forms of action generally, rather than a substantive doctrinal term in its own right. Searches on ACCO alone will likely surface manuscript-adjacent or paleographic discussions; the substantive research trail runs through ACTION and FORMS OF ACTION.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical source in the Law Mind shelf that addresses this abbreviation directly. Burrill identifies ACCO as a Latin abbreviation of actio and ACCONEM as an abbreviation of actionem, citing Townshend's Pleadings as his authority. No other major historical legal dictionaries in the standard shelf — not Black's, not Bouvier's — appear to carry a separate entry for this abbreviation, which reflects its status as a scribal convention rather than a term of legal art. Burrill's treatment is therefore the authoritative stopping point for this entry; researchers needing further elaboration must go to the Townshend source itself or to paleographic guides to Latin legal manuscript abbreviations.
The Latin proper noun Acco (a chieftain of the Senones mentioned in Caesar's Gallic War) shares the same spelling but is entirely unrelated to the legal abbreviation. No confusion between the two is possible in legal manuscript context, but researchers conducting broad Latin corpus searches should be aware the name will appear in non-legal classical texts.