Definition
A cancellation or cancelling of a written instrument. In old English law, cancellatura referred to the physical act of striking through, erasing, or otherwise obliterating a document — particularly a deed, will, or other legal instrument — so as to render it void or revoked. The term appears in medieval legal writing as a technical descriptor for the deliberate defacement of a document as a legal act, not merely an incidental mark or scribal correction.
Common Confusion
Cancellatura describes the act or fact of cancellation — the physical obliteration itself. It should not be conflated with the legal consequences that may or may not follow from that act. Whether a cancellatura voided an instrument depended on intent, circumstance, and the nature of the document; mere physical marking was not always sufficient to work a legal revocation. Researchers should also distinguish cancellatura from rasura (erasure or scraping of parchment), which appears alongside it in Fleta as a related but distinct form of alteration. Rasura could constitute fraud or spoliation; cancellatura more typically indicated deliberate revocation.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archaic Latin law term appearing almost exclusively in medieval English legal sources, particularly Bracton and Fleta. Researchers will encounter it in treatises and manuscripts dealing with the formal requirements for revoking deeds and wills in early English law, and in disputes over whether an instrument had been properly cancelled or fraudulently altered.
The distinction between cancellatura and rasura matters when reading Fleta (lib. 6, c. 34) in context: Fleta pairs the two terms — rasura vel cancellatura — suggesting they were understood as alternative methods of obliteration, each with its own evidentiary and legal weight. A document that had been scraped (rasura) raised suspicions of forgery or tampering; one that had been lined through or formally cancelled (cancellatura) was more likely to be treated as revoked by intent.
Researchers working in probate history, early deed law, or the history of instrument revocation should treat cancellatura as a procedural and evidentiary concept, not a substantive rule. The legal effect was always context-dependent. Post-medieval sources rarely use the Latin term; by the time English equity and common law courts systematized cancellation doctrine, English-language terminology had displaced it. Searching historical indexes and manuscript digests under this term will surface primarily medieval sources; later case law on cancellation of instruments will not use it.
The folio reference in Black's first edition (Bract. 398b) and second edition (Bract. 398b, rendered slightly differently in each printing) both point to the same passage in Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae. Minor variation in folio citation between the two Black's editions is a known transcription issue and does not indicate a different source.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries treat cancellatura identically in substance: it is a cancelling, sourced to Bracton. Burrill adds the most useful context by supplying the companion citation to Fleta and pairing the term explicitly with rasura, which gives researchers the terminological pair needed to understand medieval English practice around document obliteration. Black's first and second editions rely on the Bracton citation alone, without the Fleta context that Burrill preserves.
None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the legal consequences of cancellatura or the evidentiary distinctions between cancellation and erasure — a gap that is significant for research purposes. To understand how these concepts functioned in practice, researchers must consult Bracton and Fleta directly rather than relying on dictionary treatment.
Jurisdictional Note
Cancellatura is specific to old English law and has no direct analogue in civil law or Scots law terminology, though functionally similar concepts exist in both traditions. American and modern English law use the term "cancellation" exclusively; cancellatura appears only in historical and comparative legal scholarship.