Definition
An adjective of Latin origin used in early common law to describe something belonging to or associated with commonage — that is, shared pasture rights held by multiple parties over the same land. The term appears almost exclusively in the phrase jus compascuum, meaning the right of common of pasture: the legally recognized entitlement of commoners to graze their animals on land held in common or over which such rights had been granted.
Jus compascuum is a species of the broader category of rights of common (jura communia). It attaches to the right to feed cattle, sheep, or other livestock on another's land — typically open fields, wastes, or manorial commons — alongside other holders of the same right.
Common Confusion
COMPASCUUM vs. COMMON OF PASTURE: These terms describe the same underlying right but at different levels of specificity. Common of pasture is the broader English-language category; jus compascuum is its Latin legal expression, used in formal pleading, conveyancing instruments, and treatises drawing on civil and canon law vocabulary. Researchers encountering one in a historical source should look for the other. Neither should be confused with common of estovers (right to take wood) or common of piscary (right to fish), which are distinct rights of common.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a relic of medieval and early modern common law pleading and land law. It will not appear in modern statutes or contemporary case law under this name. Researchers are most likely to encounter compascuum or jus compascuum in:
— Pre-nineteenth-century conveyancing instruments, grants of manorial rights, and enclosure documents, where Latin formulae were standard;
— English common law treatises (Bracton, Littleton, Coke on Littleton) and their American commentaries;
— Early American cases involving colonial land grants, where rights of common derived from English manorial practice were litigated under inherited terminology.
The practical research trap is assuming the term is obsolete in substance as well as in form. Rights of common of pasture survived enclosure in many jurisdictions and were litigated well into the nineteenth century — and in England continue to exist under modern legislation — but later sources use the English-language term rather than the Latin. A researcher tracing the doctrine forward from historical sources must pivot from jus compascuum to common of pasture to follow the thread.
The corruption apparent in the Black's (1st Ed.) entry — where the definition of compascuum bleeds without break into what appears to be the beginning of a definition of compensation ("which is necessary to restore an injured party to his former position") — is a known artifact of early dictionary typography and OCR-era digitization. Researchers using digitized versions of Black's should be aware that entry boundaries in the first edition are not always cleanly rendered.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: compascuum belongs to commonage, and jus compascuum is the right of common of pasture. Burrill's is the most analytically useful of the three, supplying the Latin root (compasci, to feed together) and a cross-reference to the broader entry on Common, which is the appropriate place to situate the term doctrinally. Black's (2nd Ed.) matches Burrill's substance while omitting the etymology. Black's (1st Ed.) is unreliable as digitized due to the typographical contamination noted above.
None of the three source dictionaries define the term beyond its identification as an adjectival label for commonage rights. None engage the doctrinal content of jus compascuum — its incidents, its mode of creation by grant or prescription, its relationship to the dominant tenement, or the effect of enclosure upon it. For those questions, the historical dictionaries must be supplemented by treatises on real property and common law rights.
Jurisdictional Note
Jus compascuum as a doctrinal matter is rooted in English common law and most directly relevant to jurisdictions that inherited English land tenure systems. In American jurisdictions, rights of common of pasture were recognized in early case law but rarely arose under the Latin designation. The term has no independent life in civil law jurisdictions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Common of Pasture; Rights of Common; Manorial Rights and Enclosure.