Definition
In feudal law, a vassal or tenant who held a *casata* — that is, one who possessed an established household, dwelling, and property of his own. The term identified a class of feudal dependent distinguished by the fact of having a settled domestic establishment, as opposed to landless or itinerant dependents who owed service without a fixed seat of tenure.
---
Why It Matters in Research
CASATUS is a term of medieval Latin origin that surfaces almost exclusively in sources dealing with early feudal tenure, Anglo-Saxon land law, and the pre-Conquest English social order. Researchers will encounter it most often in treatises and digests analyzing the structure of feudal obligation — particularly in discussions distinguishing grades of vassalage by the character of the tenant's land-holding.
The key research trap is conflation with related Latin terms of feudal status. CASATUS describes the tenant's condition (having a household and property), not the nature of the tenure itself. A researcher working through historical material on villeinage, serfdom, or manorial records should be alert to the fact that casatus does not automatically imply free status — a serf could be a casatus if he held a settled household within the manorial structure.
The term appears rarely in American legal materials and carries no operative legal significance in modern common law jurisdictions. Its primary value for Law Mind corpus researchers is interpretive: when encountered in historical treatises, it signals a discussion of the propertied or household-holding tier of a feudal dependency structure, which bears on questions of tenancy classification, the nature of services owed, and the transmission of obligations with land.
Cross-referencing with entries on VASSAL, CASATA, VILLEIN, and FEUD will typically be necessary to reconstruct the full feudal hierarchy a source is describing.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Both the first and second editions of Black's Law Dictionary give identical definitions, indicating no editorial evolution between editions on this point. Both entries are brief and functional: a casatus is a vassal or feudal tenant possessing a casata — a house, household, and property of his own.
Black's does not expand on the distinction between the casatus and other grades of feudal tenant, nor does it address the relationship between casatus status and personal freedom. Historical sources on medieval land tenure (including Bracton's *De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae* and Spelman's *Glossarium Archaeologicum*) treat the term in the context of the household as the basic unit of feudal obligation — the casatus was, in essence, the tenant who had enough of a fixed establishment to be identified and accountable within the manorial system. Neither Black's edition engages with this broader doctrinal context.
For researchers requiring depth beyond Black's summary, Ducange's *Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis* provides the most thorough historical treatment of casatus and related forms in medieval Latin legal usage.
---
Jurisdictional Note
CASATUS has no current operative legal meaning in any common law jurisdiction. It is a term of historical and interpretive significance only, relevant to research in English feudal law, medieval land tenure, and the history of villeinage.
---