CESSAVIT PER BIENNIUM

Definition

A writ of the old English common law that a lord could bring against a tenant who had ceased for two years to perform the services or pay the rent required by the tenure under which the tenant held land — and who had no sufficient goods or chattels on the land to be distrained. The writ was also available where a religious house held land on condition of performing certain spiritual services and had failed to do so for two years. The writ was in the nature of a writ of right, meaning it went to the root of the title rather than merely to possession. A successful claimant could recover the land itself. The writ is now entirely obsolete and has no counterpart in modern practice. ---

Common Confusion

The cessavit is sometimes loosely grouped with distraint as a remedy for non-performance of feudal obligations. They are distinct. Distraint (distress) allowed the lord to seize goods found on the land to compel performance without resorting to court. The cessavit arose precisely when distraint was unavailable — when the tenant had no sufficient goods on the land to distrain. The two remedies were sequential, not interchangeable. ---

Why It Matters in Research

CESSAVIT PER BIENNIUM is a term researchers encounter almost exclusively in historical and antiquarian sources. Several navigational points bear noting. The writ is foundational to understanding the doctrine of tenure in medieval English land law. Because it operated as a writ of right, it belongs to a family of real actions — alongside the writ of right proper, the mort d'ancestor, and the novel disseisin — that were progressively marginalized and eventually abolished as English land law modernized. Researchers working with pre-nineteenth-century real property materials will find the cessavit discussed in treatises on real actions, not in the mainstream of property or landlord-tenant law as it later developed. The statutory origin matters for source navigation. Burrill traces the writ to the Statute of Gloucester (6 Edward I, c. 4, 1278), which gave the remedy to lords against tenants in fee. Subsequent legislation extended or modified the writ. Researchers looking for the writ's governing rules should start with that statute and the commentary it generated in the Year Books and early English treatise literature rather than expecting a coherent treatment in later compilation works. The writ's availability against religious houses — for failure to perform spiritual services — opens a separate research thread in ecclesiastical and monastic land history. The two branches of the writ (secular tenure and spiritual conditions) were treated as variants of the same instrument but raised different practical issues, particularly regarding who stood as the lord and what performance was required. Because the writ is obsolete, modern index systems and digest headings rarely surface it directly. Researchers will find it under historical real property headings, under entries for "real actions," or embedded in histories of English land law. It does not appear in American materials in any live sense; the feudal tenure system on which the writ depended did not transplant to the American colonies in operative form. ---

Historical Dictionary Support

The three source dictionaries agree on all material points: the writ lay after two years of non-performance; it required the absence of sufficient goods for distraint; and it was in the nature of a writ of right. Burrill adds the most useful texture. His entry identifies the writ's character as founded on the doctrine of tenure and cites Roscoe's Real Actions and Reeves' History of English Law — both reliable starting points for deeper research. His Latin gloss ("He ceased for two years") confirms the writ's name is a descriptive phrase, not a formal term of art invented by legal tradition but rather a characterization of the tenant's failure built directly into the writ's name. Black's (both editions) treats the writ briefly and accurately but flags its obsolescence at the outset. The truncation visible in the first edition's transcription — where the entry appears to blend into a neighboring entry on certiorari — is an artifact of the source and not a reflection of any overlap in doctrine. None of the historical dictionaries discuss the procedural steps of the writ in detail or its relationship to the Statute of Gloucester's broader program. Researchers needing that level of analysis should turn directly to Reeves or to Blackstone's Commentaries, where real actions are addressed systematically. ---

Jurisdictional Note

The cessavit was a creature of English feudal tenure and has no American analog. American jurisdictions did not adopt the system of feudal tenure that generated the writ's theoretical basis, and no American court applied it as live doctrine. It appears in American legal dictionaries and historical writings as an antecedent concept only. ---

Related Terms