Definition
To pay relief to a lord of a manor upon becoming that lord's vassal. The term describes the formal act by which a new tenant acknowledged feudal obligation to a superior lord — specifically the payment of a relief (a sum owed to the lord when land passed by inheritance or transfer) accompanied by homage or submission. The full Latin phrase *capitali domino accipitare* means to pay relief, homage, or obedience to the chief lord upon entering into vassalage.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archaic term of feudal tenure law with no surviving operational meaning in modern legal systems. Researchers will encounter it only in medieval legal texts, Latin treatises, and historical sources dealing with English feudal land tenure. Its presence in Black's 2nd Edition reflects that dictionary's substantial coverage of Latin and Norman-French terms that have since dropped from subsequent editions — a researcher relying on a later edition of Black's may find no entry at all.
The term connects directly to the broader doctrine of feudal relief, which was a live legal concept in English common law through the medieval period and remained relevant to land title disputes in historical records well into the early modern period. A researcher tracing chain of title in older English land records or interpreting medieval charters may need to understand what *accipitare* or *acipitare* variant spellings signal — namely, a formal transfer of feudal allegiance and the accompanying payment that documented it.
Spelling variations are a genuine trap. Medieval Latin manuscript sources and early printed legal texts show inconsistent orthography. Researchers should not expect uniformity across sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's 2nd Edition is the primary authority of record for this term in the Law Mind corpus. The entry is brief and functional, directing the reader to Fleta (lib. 2, c. 50), a significant 13th-century English legal treatise. The Fleta reference grounds the term in a real and datable source, which is useful for placing the concept historically — Fleta dates to approximately 1290 and was composed during the reign of Edward I, a period of active feudal land law development in England.
No other dictionary in the corpus provides an independent entry. The absence of this term from later legal dictionaries is itself informative: it signals that the term was already archaic by the time modern legal lexicography took shape, and that its inclusion in Black's 2nd was a deliberate effort to document historical and Latin legal vocabulary rather than describe living doctrine.