Definition
Latin: "He broke the close." A technical phrase from common law pleading denoting the act of unlawful entry onto another's enclosed or bounded land — the tortious breaking of a "close." A close, in this context, is not necessarily a physically fenced or walled space; it refers to any parcel of land whose boundaries are legally defined and over which the owner holds the right of exclusive possession. The phrase itself was the operative allegation in the common law action of trespass quare clausum fregit ("wherefore he broke the close"), which served as the primary remedy for unauthorized entry onto real property. Clausum fregit identifies the wrong; quare clausum fregit names the full pleading formula and the action built around it.
Common Confusion
Clausum fregit and quare clausum fregit are closely related but not interchangeable. Clausum fregit is the abbreviated Latin description of the act (the breaking of the close). Quare clausum fregit is the full pleading phrase — and the name of the action — meaning "wherefore he broke the close." Researchers will encounter both forms in historical sources. The truncated clausum fregit typically appears in case reports and secondary commentary when referring to the nature of the wrong; the full quare clausum fregit appears in writs, declarations, and formal pleadings. Black's Law Dictionary treats clausum fregit as a term pointing forward to quare clausum fregit; Bouvier simply redirects the reader there entirely.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost entirely historical in operational significance. Researchers will encounter clausum fregit when working in pre-twentieth-century common law materials — English Year Books, early American case reporters, and pleading treatises from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Its primary research value is as a navigational marker: when you see clausum fregit in a case or pleading, you are in the territory of real property trespass, specifically the unauthorized entry on land action rather than trespass to chattels or trespass to the person.
The key trap for researchers is conflating the action with modern concepts of trespass. The common law action quare clausum fregit was a highly technical form of action with specific pleading requirements. The close did not require physical enclosure; the legal boundary was sufficient. Courts treated the breaking of that legal boundary as actionable even without proof of actual damage — the violation of possessory right was itself the injury. Modern trespass to land doctrine inherits this principle but the formal pleading apparatus has been abolished in most jurisdictions by the merger of law and equity and the adoption of code pleading.
Researchers using English law reports before 1875 and American reports before the field code reforms of the mid-nineteenth century will need to recognize clausum fregit as the shorthand identifying the action. Burrill's note that "a clausum fregit" was called "a cause of action" in 11 Mod. 304 is a useful confirmation that the phrase functioned as a standalone label for the claim in period usage, not merely as a pleading formula.
Cross-corpus connections run to the law of close (the concept of legally bounded land), the forms of action generally, and the distinction between quare clausum fregit and other trespass writs such as de bonis asportatis (trespass for taking goods) and vi et armis (trespass by force and arms).
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Burrill agree on the core definition: clausum fregit means "he broke the close" and was the technical words used in trespass actions, now retained principally in the phrase quare clausum fregit. Burrill adds the useful gloss that the phrase served as a cause-of-action label in period practice, citing 11 Mod. 304. Bouvier provides no independent definition, redirecting readers to quare clausum fregit and trespass — a deliberate choice that signals Bouvier treated clausum fregit as a subordinate term rather than a freestanding concept.
All four sources agree this is largely archaic pleading vocabulary. None of the historical dictionaries engage with the substantive law of close or the elements of the underlying trespass action in any depth under this entry; that analysis appears instead under quare clausum fregit and trespass in each dictionary. Researchers should not rely on the clausum fregit entry alone when working through the elements of the action.
One minor note: the second edition of Black's Law Dictionary appears to have a printing artifact in the available source text, where a definition for a different term runs into the clausum fregit entry. The substantive definition is consistent with the first edition and with Burrill, and the artifact does not affect meaning.
Jurisdictional Note
The action quare clausum fregit was a common law action and appeared in both English and American jurisdictions that followed common law pleading. Code pleading reforms — beginning with New York's Field Code of 1848 and spreading through most American states and federally — abolished the forms of action and with them the technical necessity of the clausum fregit formula. English procedure was similarly reformed by the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875. The underlying substantive right (recovery for unauthorized entry on land) survived; the pleading terminology did not.