Definition
A Latin maxim meaning "for or upon the same terms." The phrase operates as a principle of interpretive consistency: where a grant, covenant, or obligation is made upon particular terms or conditions, a subsequent or analogous instrument of the same character is to be construed and held upon those same terms. The maxim functions less as a standalone doctrine and more as a shorthand for the principle that parallel instruments attract parallel construction.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in early modern English tenure and property law literature, and its practical footprint in reported cases is narrow. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in treatises and argumentative writings on feudal tenure rather than in court opinions. Burrill traces the phrase to Bacon's argument in Low's Case on Tenures — a context that situates the maxim squarely within debates over the nature and incidents of feudal grants. That provenance matters: the interpretive principle the phrase embodies was shaped by the specific logic of tenure law, where the terms upon which land was originally held were understood to propagate forward into derivative arrangements.
Researchers working in early American property or land grant law should be cautious about importing this maxim without accounting for the extent to which English tenure doctrine was received — or rejected — in particular colonial and post-independence jurisdictions. The maxim carries feudal assumptions about continuity of terms that may not translate cleanly into systems that abolished tenure incidents.
Because the phrase is rare and appears almost entirely in treatise literature rather than statutory or case law, full-text searching in the Law Mind corpus will yield better results in argumentative and doctrinal texts than in reporters. Variant Latin spellings and abbreviations in early print sources may also complicate search retrieval.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the only shelf source that captures this phrase, and its entry is brief: "For or upon the same terms," with attribution to Bacon's argument in Low's Case of Tenures (Works, iv. 239). That single citation is itself instructive — Bacon deploys the phrase in an advocacy context, not as settled law, which suggests the maxim functioned as a persuasive interpretive touchstone rather than a hard rule of decision.
No other historical dictionary in the standard law library shelf appears to have independently treated this phrase. Its absence from Bouvier, Black, and similar sources underscores how specialized and period-specific its usage was. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as a pointer to Bacon's Works rather than a complete account of the doctrine, and should follow the primary source directly for any substantive reliance.