Definition
An unlawful or unwarranted entry onto another person's land. The term derives from the old common law concept of a "close" — a legally enclosed parcel of land, whether fenced or not — and treats any unauthorized physical intrusion onto that land as a trespass. The action for breach of close was the traditional common law form of trespass to land, giving a landowner the right to sue even where no actual damage was done, because the unauthorized entry itself constituted a legal wrong.
The "close" in this term does not require a physical enclosure. In legal usage, every parcel of land is considered enclosed by an imaginary boundary, and crossing that boundary without right or permission constitutes the breach.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Breach" in ordinary English means a gap, break, or violation — as in a breach in a wall or a breach of promise. "Close" as a noun can mean a dead-end street or an enclosed area, such as the grounds surrounding a cathedral.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines "close" as "an enclosed place; especially, a small field or piece of land enclosed by a hedge, fence, or wall" and "breach" as "the act of breaking, in a figurative sense; violation; infraction."
The gap between common and legal meaning is important here. In common usage, a "close" implies a physically fenced or walled enclosure, and a "breach" suggests a structural break. In law, neither is required: every parcel of land has a legal close regardless of physical barriers, and walking across open, unfenced farmland without permission is as much a breach of close as climbing a fence. The legal fiction that all land is enclosed is essential to understanding this term.
Common Confusion
Breach of close should not be confused with general "breach" in contract law, which concerns the failure to perform a contractual obligation. The terms share a word but occupy entirely different doctrinal spaces — breach of close is a tort (specifically trespass to land), while breach of contract is a civil wrong arising from agreement. Researchers encountering the word "breach" in historical sources should look to context: references to "close," "soil," or "entry" signal the trespass action; references to "covenant," "promise," or "performance" signal contract.
Breach of close is also distinct from ejectment, which was the historical action to recover possession of land. Breach of close addressed the wrong of entry itself; ejectment addressed the right to occupy.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost entirely a historical term of art. It appears with regularity in common law pleading materials, pre-twentieth-century case reporters, and treatises on real property and tort, but has been largely displaced in modern American practice by the phrase "trespass to land." Researchers reading nineteenth-century or earlier materials will encounter it frequently; those working with modern sources will rarely see it outside historical quotation.
The formula "quare clausum fregit" — meaning "wherefore he broke the close" — was the Latin tag for this action and appears in old writ forms and pleadings. Burrill and Blackstone both cite to 3 Bl. Comm. 209, which is the foundational treatment. Researchers should treat all three historical dictionary entries here as drawing from the same Blackstone source rather than independent authority.
A research trap: in historical records, "close" alone sometimes means the enclosed land itself, not the action. Context distinguishes the two uses. An entry describing "an action for breach of close" refers to the legal claim; an entry referencing "the close of John Smith" refers to the land parcel.
Jurisdictional variation in historical sources is minimal because this was a uniform common law form of action, but researchers comparing English and American materials should note that American courts adapted common law pleading forms in varied ways before the Field Code reforms of the mid-nineteenth century.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's entries are nearly identical in substance, all tracing to the same passage in Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Comm. 209). Bouvier uses the word "unwarrantable" where Black's and Burrill use both "unlawful" and "unwarrantable" — a minor difference reflecting that the wrong could arise from lack of legal right even absent affirmative illegality. None of the three dictionaries elaborate on the fiction of the invisible close or the relationship to the quare clausum fregit writ, which Blackstone's original treatment addresses more fully. For the pleading forms and procedural mechanics, researchers should go directly to Blackstone rather than relying on these compressed definitions.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: any treatment of damages or the nominal-damages doctrine. Courts recognized breach of close as actionable without proof of actual harm, and that principle — significant for understanding the historical function of the action — is absent from all three entries.
Jurisdictional Note
Breach of close as a formal pleading category is rooted in English common law and was received into American law through the colonial period. Following procedural reforms in the nineteenth century, most American jurisdictions folded the action into generalized trespass to real property claims. English law retained the terminology longer. Modern researchers should not expect the phrase to appear in contemporary statutes or rules.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The matching encyclopedia entries (contracts_59, contracts_62, tax_14) concern contract breach and tax closing agreements respectively and are not relevant to this term. No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses breach of close or common law trespass to land forms.