Definition
In old English law, a grantee — that is, the party to whom a grant was made. The term appears in Latin pleading and conveyancing records as the passive participant in a grant, as distinguished from the grantor (concessor). A concessus per literas patentes is a patentee, meaning a grantee whose right or privilege was conveyed by letters patent.
Common Confusion
CONCESSUS vs. CONCESSOR: These paired Latin terms function as the grantee and grantor, respectively. Researchers encountering either term in medieval or early modern English records should confirm which party is meant before drawing conclusions about title or standing. The suffix distinction (-us as recipient of the act; -or as the actor) follows standard Latin participial logic, but the terms are easily transposed in reading or transcription.
Why It Matters in Research
CONCESSUS is a term of pleading and record, not a term of substantive doctrine. Its primary research value is positional: it identifies the grantee in a formal grant transaction and can be critical when parsing parties in older English conveyancing documents, patent rolls, or plea rolls.
Researchers working in Year Books, early chancery records, or close and patent rolls will encounter CONCESSUS as a technical label for the receiving party in grants of land, franchises, monopolies, or royal privileges. Its appearance signals that the document records a completed conveyance act, not merely a covenant or promise.
The phrase concessus per literas patentes has particular relevance for patent roll research. Letters patent were a principal instrument by which the Crown granted rights to subjects, and identifying the concessus in such instruments can help establish chains of title, priority of privilege, or standing in later litigation over those rights.
Because this is a Latin term confined almost entirely to medieval and early modern English legal records, it does not appear in American legal practice or modern English courts. Researchers encountering CONCESSUS in post-seventeenth-century materials should treat the usage as either a deliberate antiquarianism or a quotation from an older source — it is not living legal vocabulary.
The term also appears in English pleading texts that describe parties to grants in formal terms. Townshend's Pleadings (cited by Burrill) used CONCESSUS and concessus per literas patentes as standard labels in explaining how grants were identified in pleading practice. Researchers using those treatises will find the term embedded in procedural context, not purely as a substantive label.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree entirely: CONCESSUS means "a grantee." The definitions are functionally identical across Black's first and second editions and Burrill. No divergence exists on the core meaning.
Burrill alone adds the Latin etymology (from concedere, to grant) and provides the paired phrase concessus per literas patentes, supporting the practical usage in patent roll contexts. Burrill also cites Townshend's Pleadings, giving researchers a concrete treatise reference. The Black's editions, as they frequently do with short Latin terms, reproduce only the bottom-line English equivalent without additional context.
No source disputes the meaning. The only substantive addition across sources is Burrill's elaboration of the letters patent variant, which is the most research-useful detail in the entry. Historical sources collectively say nothing about CONCESSUS as it might appear in non-English civil law traditions; the term is treated entirely as a feature of old English law.
Jurisdictional Note
CONCESSUS as a legal term of art is specific to old English law and English-derived legal records. It does not have recognized usage in American, Scottish, or civil law jurisdictions as a technical term. American researchers will encounter it only when working with English sources, colonial charters traceable to royal grants, or historical treatises citing English pleading practice.