CIROGRAPHUM - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CIROGRAPHUMAuthored

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Definition

Cirographum is a Latin term from old English law denoting a chirograph — a written legal instrument that was duplicated on a single sheet of parchment, then divided between the parties (or between a party and the court) by cutting through a word or decorative pattern written across the middle. Each party retained one portion; the authenticity of either half could be verified by matching the cut edges or the divided text. Cirographum is an older or variant Latin spelling of chirographum, used interchangeably in medieval English legal records and pleading. The term appears in Fleta, the late thirteenth-century legal treatise, as a technical designation for instruments of this form.

Common Confusion

Cirographum and chirographum are the same instrument. The variation in spelling reflects the fluidity of medieval Latin orthography rather than any distinction in legal meaning. Researchers encountering either form in a source are looking at the same underlying concept. Neither should be confused with a simple sealed writing (carta or deed) lacking the indenture or division feature, nor with a recognizance or obligation entered on the court's roll — though chirographs were used in the Court of Common Pleas to record final concords (fines), giving the term a specific procedural meaning in that context distinct from its general meaning of any divided writing.

Why It Matters in Research

The term will appear primarily in Latin legal records and treatises from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries and in antiquarian digests and dictionaries drawing on that material. Researchers should be aware of several navigational points.

Spelling instability is significant. Scribes rendered the term as cirographum, cyrographum, chirographum, and occasionally kyrographum depending on period and locale. Any corpus search relying on a single spelling will miss variants.

Burrill's entry cross-references Fleta (lib. 1, c. 8, § 4 and c. 13, § 14), which is the primary treatise source for the term's usage in medieval English legal procedure. Researchers tracing the doctrinal history of the instrument should consult Fleta directly.

The chirograph had its most durable institutional presence as the vehicle for the final concord (also called a fine) in the Court of Common Pleas. When a collusive suit was settled by agreement, the agreement was engrossed three times on one sheet — twice for the parties and once for the court's foot (the "foot of the fine") — making the chirograph central to the conveyancing and title record system of medieval and early modern England. A researcher encountering cirographum in a plea roll or conveyancing context should consider whether the specific instrument at issue is a final concord rather than a private deed.

The term largely disappears from English legal usage by the seventeenth century, replaced by more familiar vocabulary. It persists in antiquarian legal dictionaries (Cowel's Interpreter, Blount's Nomo-Lexicon, and Burrill) as a term of historical explanation rather than living practice. This means any modern appearance of the term is almost certainly archaic or historical in register.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's entry is brief and explicitly derivative, directing the reader to chirographum as the primary entry and citing Fleta as the textual authority. The entry confirms that cirographatum functioned adjectivally — meaning "chirographed" or "in the form of a chirograph" — and that the phrase in scripto cirographato designated a writing that had been executed in chirograph form. Burrill offers no substantive analysis of the instrument's legal operation, treating cirographum as a spelling variant warranting identification rather than independent treatment.

The Burrill entry contains an apparent textual intrusion: a fragment concerning "presumptive evidence" appears at the close of the cirographum entry, a known editorial artifact in certain editions of Burrill reflecting a typesetting error or manuscript confusion. Researchers should disregard that fragment as belonging to a different entry.

Historical dictionaries that do treat chirographum more fully (Cowel, Blount, Jacob) provide the functional description: the cutting of the document, the purpose of the divided text in fraud prevention, and the specific use in final concords. Burrill's cirographum entry adds nothing to that picture beyond confirming the variant spelling's appearance in Fleta.

Jurisdictional Note

The chirograph and its variant Latin designations are principally a feature of English and Anglo-Norman legal practice. Analogous divided instruments appear in continental European notarial practice, but cirographum as a term of art belongs to the English common law tradition and its Latin documentary record.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Law Mind Encyclopedia — Chirograph
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Final Concord (Fine)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Documentary Evidence in Medieval Law

CIROGRAPHUMmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

L. Lat. In old English law. A chirograph. An old form of chirographum, (q. v.) Fleta, lib. 1, c. 8, § 4. Id. c. 13, § 14. Cirographatum; chirographed, in the form of a chirograph. In scripto cirographato; in a chirographed writing. Fleta, *** The term presumptive is frequently used as synonymous with circumstantial, in its application to evidence, but it is not so used with strict accuracy. Wills on Circumst. Evid. chap. 2, sect. 1. 1 Greenl. on Evid. § 13. According to Mr. Wills, circumstantial and presumptive evidence differ as genus and species. Wills on Evid. ub. sup. All presumptive evidence is circumstantial, because necessarily derived from or made up of circumstances, but all circumstantial evidence is not presumptive, that is, it does not operate in the way of presumption, being sometimes of a higher grade, and leading to necessary conclusions, instead of probable ones. Burr. Circ. lib. 2, c. 72, § 7. Evid. 7, 77, 78. The great peculiarity CIROTECA. L. Lat. In old English of circumstantial evidence is its indirect law. A glove. A covering for the hand, character, it being made to bear upon the worn by threshers, (trituratores,) and principal fact in question, (the factum profanners (ventrices) of grain. Fleta, lib. 2, bandum,) through other and minor or colc. 82, § 2. An old form of chirotheca, lateral facts; a fact of this last kind being (q. v.) distinguished as factum probans. See Factum probandum. Mr. Wills, indeed, considers circumstantial evidence to be of a nature identically the same with direct evidence, and what he observes in confirmation of this position is undoubtedly true, that as to the minor facts themselves, the evidence by which they are to be established must be direct in its nature; but it is cerCISTA. Lat. In civil and old Engtainly not the less true that as to the princi-lish law. A chest or box, for containing CIST, Cyst, Chist. L. Fr. [from Lat. cista, q. v.] In old English law. A chest; a box. Detinue de iij chists ove divers chartres. Yearb. H. 9 Hen. VI. 20. Detinue d'un chist plein des ch'res: detinue for a chest full of charters. M. 11 Hen. VI. 18, 19. Cist. 14 Hen. VI. 1. Cyst. Add. after T. 20 Hen. VI. 34.