ASSISA CADERE

Definition

Assisa cadere is a Latin phrase from medieval English legal procedure meaning "to fail in the assise" — that is, to be nonsuited in an assise proceeding. A party who assisa cadere had brought a claim before an assise court and failed to sustain it, resulting in dismissal of the action rather than a determination on the merits. The phrase carries a closely related sub-form: assisa cadit in juratum, meaning the assise "falls into a jury." This described the procedural shift that occurred when a disputed matter could not be resolved through the assise mechanism and was instead submitted to ordinary trial by jury. The assise, in this context, dissolved into the jury process — a transformation that reflects the transitional character of medieval English procedure between older inquest-based methods and the common law jury trial. ---

Common Confusion

Assisa cadere concerns the failure of a party in assise proceedings — a nonsuit — and should not be confused with assisa cadit in juratum, which is the related but distinct event of the assise transforming into a jury trial. The two phrases describe different procedural outcomes: one is the collapse of a claim; the other is the conversion of a proceeding. Historical sources sometimes run them together because both involve the assise ceasing to function in its original form. Researchers should also take care not to conflate "assise" as a court or proceeding with "assize" as a legislative act or ordinance (as in the Assize of Clarendon or the Assize of Arms). The term assise had multiple concurrent meanings in medieval law, and assisa cadere refers specifically to the procedural court sense. ---

Why It Matters in Research

This term appears almost exclusively in sources treating medieval and early common law procedure. Researchers will encounter it in glossaries, abridgements, and commentaries that predate the modern procedural era — it has no operational significance in contemporary law. Its value is entirely historical and interpretive. The key navigational point: assisa cadere is a marker of the procedural world of assise courts, which functioned as hybrid bodies between administrative inquest and jury trial. Understanding the term requires understanding that world. A researcher reading early Year Books, plea rolls, or commentaries that reference cadere in assisa needs to recognize this as nonsuit language — a party who has failed procedurally, not lost on the merits. Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Comm. 402) is the primary English-language common law source cited in connection with this phrase. Cowell's Interpreter is the other reference in the historical dictionaries. Both should be consulted in tandem: Blackstone for the procedural context, Cowell for the definitional gloss. Researchers working in Law Mind's corpus will find the relevant treatment in sources addressing assise courts, nonsuit procedure, and the history of trial by jury. The phrase assisa cadit in juratum is particularly significant for understanding the evolution of the jury trial in English law. The image of the assise "falling into" a jury captures the organic, accretive way in which jury trial displaced earlier modes of proof — a theme running through legal history from the twelfth century forward. ---

Historical Dictionary Support

Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary provide the same core definition without material variation: "to fail in the assise; i.e., to be nonsuited." Both cite Cowell and 3 Bl. Comm. 402. The second edition adds the sub-entry for assisa cadit in juratum and a brief description of the assise as a body of twelve men summoned to try a disputed cause, performing functions analogous to a jury but with important distinctions (the assise members had independent knowledge of the matter; they were not blank-slate triers of fact in the modern sense). What the historical dictionaries do not supply is procedural context sufficient for a researcher unfamiliar with assise courts. Neither edition explains the conditions under which a party would fail in the assise, the consequences of nonsuit compared to adverse judgment, or the relationship between the assise of novel disseisin and mort d'ancestor — the two principal possessory assises where this terminology would most commonly arise. For that context, Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law and Milsom's Historical Foundations of the Common Law remain the standard secondary sources. ---

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Assize Courts; Nonsuit; Trial by Jury (Historical Development) ---

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