Definition
Agistment is a contractual arrangement in which a landowner takes in another person's livestock to graze or pasture on the landowner's land in exchange for an agreed price paid by the animal's owner. The term also refers to the compensation or profit earned by the landowner for providing that pasturage.
The word carries two distinct but related legal applications:
1. AGISTMENT AS BAILMENT OF LIVESTOCK: The core and most common meaning. The landowner (the agistor) receives another's cattle, horses, or other animals onto their land and undertakes to provide pasture. The arrangement creates a bailment relationship, imposing duties of reasonable care on the agistor for the animals received. The agistor typically holds a lien on the animals for unpaid charges.
2. AGISTMENT OF SEA-BANKS (AGISTMENT OF LANDS): A now largely archaic usage referring to a charge or tribute assessed against certain landowners obligating them to maintain sea-banks, dikes, or coastal defenses. Lands subject to this obligation were historically called terrae agistatae. This usage is distinct from livestock agistment and operates more as a land burden than a contractual service.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The taking in of other people's livestock to graze at a certain rate; the price paid for such feeding; a charge or rate against lands.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Formerly, the taking and feeding of other men's cattle in the king's forests; the taking in of other men's cattle to graze at a certain rate; the price paid for such feeding; a charge or rate against lands, as in the agistment of sea-banks.
The common and legal meanings align closely here, which is uncommon for a term of this age. The principal gap is one of context rather than meaning: the ordinary reader encountering the word in a historical document may not recognize that it can describe either a private contractual service or an ancient public land burden, and may miss the agistor's lien rights and bailment obligations that attach to the livestock arrangement under law.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
AGISTMENT OF CATTLE (OR LIVESTOCK): The standard form. A private agreement between an animal owner and a landowner for pasturage at an agreed rate. Governed by bailment principles. The agistor has a possessory lien for unpaid fees.
AGISTMENT OF SEA-BANKS: An obligation running with certain coastal or low-lying lands requiring owners to maintain protective banks or dikes. Assessed as a charge against the land rather than arising from a personal contract. Found principally in older English law and in sources discussing land burdens.
ROYAL FOREST AGISTMENT: The historical practice of taking in cattle to graze in the king's forests, administered under forest law. Noted in Webster's 1913; largely without modern application but relevant to historical document research.
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Why It Matters in Research
Agistment is a term that straddles property law, bailment law, and agricultural law, and researchers should take care to identify which application is operative in any given source.
BAILMENT AND LIEN ISSUES: In American case law, agistment disputes most commonly arise from lien claims—whether the agistor has a lien on the animals for unpaid fees, and whether that lien is possessory or statutory. State lien statutes have largely overtaken the common law on this point, so the applicable rule varies significantly by jurisdiction and era. Researching agistment in 19th-century American cases means paying close attention to whether a state lien statute had been enacted at the time.
SEA-BANK AGISTMENT: This usage appears in historical English legal sources and in early American treatises influenced by English law. Researchers encountering terrae agistatae or "agistment of sea-banks" in older texts should not conflate this with the livestock pasturage meaning. The land-burden application has essentially no modern American legal currency, but it appears in historical real property documents, particularly those with English roots.
CORPUS CONNECTIONS: Agistment overlaps materially with entries on BAILMENT (the foundational relationship governing the agistor's duties), LIEN (the agistor's security interest in the animals), and DISTRESS (historical enforcement mechanisms). In property-focused research, the sea-bank application connects to EASEMENT, COVENANT, and LAND BURDEN. Researchers should also check entries for AGISTOR (the person providing the service) and LIVERY STABLE KEEPER (a related but distinct category of animal bailee with different duties and lien rights).
HISTORICAL TRAP: Burrill's citation to Blackstone (2 Bl. Com. 452) and the reference in Rapalje & Lawrence to Norman French roots signal that the term carries English feudal and forest-law freight that does not translate directly into American law. When reading 19th-century American decisions citing English agistment precedent, verify whether the court was applying the English common law rule or a superseding state statute.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries show strong agreement on the core livestock meaning: taking in another's cattle to pasture on one's land for an agreed price. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill are consistent on this point.
Points of divergence and supplementation:
Burrill is the most technically precise on the bailment character, connecting agistment to the broader law of depasturing and citing Blackstone. Burrill's reference to the term being "called anciently gisement" (citing Cowell) is useful for researchers working with very early English sources who may encounter that variant spelling.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most thorough on etymology and the sea-bank application, and is the only source among the five to explicitly note the terrae agistatae formula. Researchers working with historical real property records should consult this entry.
Black's 2nd Edition adds case citations absent from the 1st Edition—Bass v. Pierce, Williams v. Miller, and Auld v. Travis—providing American jurisdictional anchors for the livestock meaning.
Bouvier's is the most compressed, adding value mainly through its cross-reference to AGISTOR, which is the appropriate next entry for researchers concerned with the duties and liabilities of the party receiving the animals.
What the historical dictionaries collectively underemphasize: the lien rights of the agistor and the displacement of common law rules by state livestock-lien statutes in American jurisdictions. These practical dimensions require consulting statutory materials and case law beyond what any of the shelf dictionaries provide.
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Jurisdictional Note
In American law, agistment lien rights are typically governed by state statute rather than the common law, and these statutes vary considerably in scope, priority, and enforcement procedure. Some states use the term "agistment" expressly in their lien statutes; others address the same relationship under broader "livestock keeper" or "pasture lien" provisions. Researchers should not assume that the common law agistor's lien survives unmodified in any given state. The sea-bank application of agistment has no significant modern American statutory or case law presence.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Bailments (for the duty of care and lien rights arising from the agistment relationship); Agricultural Law (for modern pasturage agreements and statutory lien frameworks); Real Property Burdens (for the agistment of sea-banks in historical context).
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