Definition
To agist is to take in another person's livestock to graze or pasture on one's land for a fee. The term functions both as the verb describing the act and as the root for the related noun forms "agistment" (the arrangement itself) and "agister" (the person who takes in the animals).
In its original medieval sense, agist referred specifically to the practice of taking in strangers' cattle in the king's forest and collecting payment for that grazing on behalf of the crown — a function carried out by royal officers called agisters or gist-takers. Over time, the term shed its royal-forest context and came to describe any private arrangement in which a landowner accepts another's animals for pasture in exchange for compensation.
The modern legal significance of agist lies primarily in the relationship it creates: an agister is a bailee for hire, and the law imposes duties of reasonable care on that person with respect to the animals in their custody. Most jurisdictions recognize a lien in favor of the agister against the animals for unpaid fees.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To take to graze or pasture, at a certain sum; used originally of the feeding of cattle in the king's forests and collecting the money for the same. Also, to charge lands with any public burden.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To take to graze or pasture, at a certain sum; used originally of the feeding of cattle in the king's forests and collecting the money for the same.
The common and legal definitions are unusually close for this term, but the secondary Wiktionary sense — charging lands with a public burden — points toward a dimension of the word that most modern legal sources do not carry forward. Researchers should note that the broader administrative meaning (assigning, apportioning, or assessing) appears in Burrill and in Spelman, and may surface in older taxation and forest-law contexts where the word is not being used in the livestock-grazing sense at all.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
AGIST (verb): The act of receiving another's animals to pasture for compensation.
AGISTMENT (noun): The contractual arrangement created by agisting; the right or practice of taking in cattle to graze for a fee. Also used in older sources to describe a tax or charge on cattle in royal forests.
AGISTER (noun): The party who receives and pastures the animals. As a bailee for hire, the agister owes a duty of ordinary care and typically holds a possessory lien on the animals for unpaid fees.
GIST-TAKER: The historical royal-forest officer who performed agistment on behalf of the crown. Functionally synonymous with agister in the forest-law context but specific to that administrative role.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary trap in historical sources is the word's dual ancestry. In forest-law and early administrative records, agist carries the broader meaning of apportioning or assessing — whether animals, land, or taxes. Burrill preserves this explicitly, tracing the term through Spelman to a meaning of fixing or apportioning charges generally. A researcher encountering agist in a medieval forest roll or an early revenue document may be reading about assessment or apportionment, not livestock boarding. Conflating the two meanings will misread the source.
In 19th-century common law materials — where most Law Mind corpus users are likely to encounter the term — agist almost always means the livestock-grazing arrangement. The shift to modern, private-law usage was complete by the early 1800s, and Black's signals this cleanly by distinguishing ancient from modern meaning.
The agistment relationship intersects several research areas: bailment law (the agister as bailee for hire and the standard of care owed), lien law (the agister's possessory lien on animals), agricultural and grazing contracts, and, in English legal history, forest law and royal revenue administration. Researchers following a chain of authority on agister liens will find that the lien is recognized but its scope — whether it extends to animals the agister did not personally receive — varies and has generated case law worth examining.
The term is rare in modern American statutory material but appears in agricultural codes, landlord-tenant statutes governing farm animals, and livestock lien provisions in a number of states. Its absence from modern indexes should not lead a researcher to conclude the concept is absent; it may be handled under "livestock" or "pasture" headings without using the historical vocabulary.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries agree on the core modern meaning — taking in cattle to pasture for compensation — and on the historical royal-forest origin. They diverge instructively on scope and emphasis.
Rapalje & Lawrence give only the ancient forest-law definition, making this entry less useful for researchers dealing with modern agistment disputes. Black's is the most practically structured, cleanly separating ancient from modern usage and citing 13 East, 159 for the modern sense.
Burrill's entry is the most etymologically and conceptually expansive, tracing the word through its Norman-French and Latin roots to a primary meaning of placing, adjusting, or apportioning — and explicitly connecting this to tax assessment. This broader administrative sense is largely absent from the other three dictionaries and from modern usage, making Burrill the essential source for anyone working in early English administrative or forest law.
Anderson adds the most operationally useful information for practitioners, noting the agister's lien explicitly and quoting a definition of agistment that emphasizes the grazing-and-depasturing character of the arrangement. The quoted passage — "where a man takes in a horse or other cattle to graze and depasture in his grounds" — is a reliable shorthand for the modern legal concept.
No source addresses in detail the duty-of-care questions that arise when livestock in agistment are injured or lost, which is often where modern litigation actually lands.
Jurisdictional Note
Agistment lien rights and the agister's standard of care as a bailee vary by state. Some states have codified agister's liens in their agricultural or lien statutes; others leave the matter to common law. The term itself rarely appears in modern American statutes, so researchers should search livestock, pasture, and bailment provisions alongside the historical vocabulary.