Definition
A feudal payment made by a vassal to his lord upon the sale or exchange of a feud (feudal landholding). The term describes money owed as a condition of transferring the vassal's tenure — a form of dues exacted by the lord whenever the feud changed hands by the vassal's voluntary act.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow, specialized term of feudal land law with no surviving application in modern legal systems. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in historical sources — particularly those treating medieval English or continental European tenure arrangements. Its relevance in any active legal dispute or modern statutory scheme is nil; its value lies entirely in interpreting historical documents, conveyances, or treatises concerning feudal land transactions.
Two traps for corpus researchers: First, the phrase appears nowhere outside the feudal law context, so do not expect secondary elaboration beyond passing mention in feudal law encyclopedias or glossaries. Second, Black's Second Edition reproduces the entry with what appears to be a typographical artifact ("Mcney" rather than "Money"), a common error in early printed editions of legal dictionaries. Researchers comparing editions should note this is a printing defect, not a distinct definition. Both editions cite "Enc. Lond." (Encyclopedia Londinensis) as the sole authority — a London encyclopedia of the early nineteenth century that collected legal and historical terms but is not itself a primary legal source.
The term is closely related to the broader category of feudal relief and alienation fines — payments extracted whenever a fee passed by descent, sale, or exchange. Understanding adcordabilis denarii requires familiarity with concepts like relief, primer seisin, and the general rule in early feudal custom that a vassal could not alienate the feud without the lord's consent or without paying a fine for the privilege. This payment represents that fine in the context of voluntary transfer.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's editions reproduce the definition in nearly identical terms, differing only in the typographical error noted above. Neither edition elaborates beyond the single-sentence definition sourced to Enc. Lond. No competing or alternative definitions appear in the corpus, and no additional historical dictionaries in the Law Mind collection provide further treatment.
The brevity of both entries signals that even nineteenth-century legal lexicographers treated this as a term of purely historical curiosity rather than practical legal utility. The sourcing solely to an encyclopedia — rather than to Year Books, Bracton, Glanvill, or other primary feudal law authorities — suggests the compilers were themselves working at one remove from primary medieval sources.
Researchers seeking deeper grounding should look to treatises on feudal tenure directly, such as Sir Martin Wright's Introduction to the Law of Tenures (1730) or the feudal law sections of Blackstone's Commentaries, neither of which uses this specific phrase but both of which address the underlying concept of alienation fines.
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Jurisdictional Note
This term has no modern jurisdictional application. It belongs to the feudal land law common to England and parts of continental Europe before the progressive abolition of feudal tenure. In England, the Statute of Quia Emptores (1290) fundamentally altered the rules governing subinfeudation and alienation, and feudal tenure was formally abolished in 1660 under the Tenures Abolition Act.
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