BLADA - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BLADAAuthored

The Law Mind • 694 words

Definition

An old English legal term referring to grain crops, used in historical property and agricultural law. The term carried three overlapping senses depending on context: (1) growing crops of grain of any kind, still in the field; (2) all manner of annual grain broadly; and (3) harvested grain already gathered. The precise meaning in any given instrument or record depended on context, making it an unstable term even within historical usage.

BLADA appears primarily in medieval and early modern English legal instruments—conveyances, leases, manorial records, and writs—where the status of crops at the time of a land transaction was legally significant. Whether grain was classified as standing, growing, or harvested affected whether it passed with the land, remained with the outgoing tenant, or required separate conveyance.

Common Confusion

The three senses of BLADA—growing crops, annual grain generally, and harvested grain—are not merely nuanced variations; they can produce opposite legal outcomes in the same document. A conveyance of land including BLADA could mean the buyer received grain still in the ground (part of the realty), or it could mean only severed grain (personal property). Researchers should not assume a consistent meaning across sources or time periods.

Why It Matters in Research

BLADA is a term of medieval Latin origin embedded in English legal records and will appear in manorial court rolls, plea rolls, conveyancing precedents, and treatises on real property from the medieval period through the early modern era. It is unlikely to appear in any modern legal instrument.

The chief research trap is assuming the term carried a fixed technical meaning. The historical sources themselves disagree: Spelman points to growing crops, Cowell to annual grain generally, and Bracton to harvested grain. A researcher encountering BLADA in a historical document must assess from context which sense was intended—whether the transaction concerned land with crops in the ground, a general agricultural yield, or severed produce.

The term connects directly to a broader cluster of issues in historical property law: the distinction between crops as fixtures or as personal property, the doctrine of emblements (a tenant's right to harvest crops after a tenancy ends), and the treatment of agricultural produce in decedents' estates. Researchers working in any of these areas in historical English sources may encounter BLADA as part of that doctrinal vocabulary.

No modern legal significance. The term does not appear in contemporary statutes or case law and has no functional modern equivalent as a term of art.

Historical Dictionary Support

All four source dictionaries treat BLADA as a purely historical term of old English law, and all four trace it to the same small cluster of authorities: Spelman's Glossarium (growing crops), Cowell's Interpreter (annual grain), and Bracton (harvested grain). The consistency of attribution across Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence confirms that by the time these dictionaries were compiled, BLADA was already a term found only in historical sources, not in live legal practice.

The minor textual variations across editions—Black's first edition cites Bract. 217b; the second edition cites Bract. 217o; Rapalje cites 217b; Bouvier's entry is partially corrupted in the available text, running into an unrelated entry on BLASPHEMY—suggest the compilers were working from common secondary sources rather than independent primary research. None of the dictionaries attempt to resolve the internal inconsistency between the three senses. That silence is itself informative: by the nineteenth century, the term was a historical curiosity, not a live doctrinal problem requiring synthesis.

BLADAmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

Growing crops of grain. Spelman, Gloss. Any annual crop. BLASPHEMY Wils. 215; 7 Vt. 522; 6 id. 411. Hence a blank left in an award for a name was al- lowed to be suppled by parol proof; 2 Dall. 180. But where a creditor signs a deed of composition, leaving the amount of his debt in blank, he binds himself to all exist- ing debts; 1 B. & Ald. It is said that a blank may be filled by consent of the parties and the instrument remain valid; Cro. Eliz. 626; 1 Ventr. 185; 11 M. & W. 468; 1 Me. 34; 5 Mass. 538; 19 Johns. 396; 21 Oreg. 211; though not, it is said, where the blank is in a part material to the operation of the instrument as an in- strument of the character which it purports to be; 6 M. & W. 200; 2 Dev. 379; 1 Yerg. 69; 2 Ν. & M'C. 125; 1 Ohio 865; 6 Gill & J. 250; 2 Brock. 64; 1 Greenl. Ev. 567; at least, without a new execution; 2 Pars. Cont. 8th ed. *724. But see 17 S. & R. 438; 22 Pa. 12; 7 Cow. 484; 22 Wend. 348;2 Ala. 517; 2 Dana 142; 4 M'Cord 239;2 Wash. Va. 164; 9 Cra. 28; 4 Bingh. 123. If a blank is left in a policy of insurance for the name of the place of destination of a ship, it will avoid the policy; Molloy, b. 2, c. 7, s. 14; Park. Ins. 22; Wesk. Ins. 42. See cases in note to 10 Am. Rep. 268. Leaving blanks in a note and chattel mortgage as to the amount and the delivery of the instruments in that condition, create an agency in the receiver to fill them in the manner contemplated by the maker; 50 Mo. App. 190. As between the parties to a deed it is not void because it did not con- tain the grantee's name when acknowl- edged, if it was afterwards written in by the grantor; 50 N. J. Eq. 177. A transfer of shares by deed executed in blank, as to the name of the purchaser, or the number of the shares, is void in Eng- land, though sanctioned by the usage of the stock exchange; 4 D. & J. 559; 2 H. & C. 175. But the rule is otherwise in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut; 20 Wend. 91; 22 id. 348; 50 Pa. 67 (but sее 38 Ра. 98); 103 Mass. 306;30 Conn. 274. See the subject discussed in Lewis on Stocks 50. As to blanks in notes, see 33 Am. Rep. 130.