CONCORD - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CONCORDAuthored

The Law Mind • 1143 words

Definition

An agreement between parties to resolve a dispute or settle a wrong. In legal usage, CONCORD carries two distinct meanings:

1. General sense: An agreement between two or more persons following a trespass or civil wrong, by which satisfaction or amends are made to the injured party. Functionally equivalent to what modern law calls an accord — a settlement of a claim by mutual agreement before or in lieu of judgment. The concord extinguished the original cause of action upon performance.

2. Conveyancing sense (historical): In the now-abolished common law procedure of levying a fine of lands, the concord was a formal stage in the proceeding. It was the agreement — real or fictitious — between the parties, in which the deforciant (the party alleged to be wrongfully withholding possession) acknowledged the complainant's right to the land. This acknowledgment formed the operative core of the fine: from it, the party levying the fine was called the cognizor and the party receiving it the cognizee. The concord in this context was also called the finis concordiae — the end or settlement of the agreement.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Concord in ordinary modern English denotes harmony, agreement, or accord between persons or groups — a state of peaceful alignment. (The Wiktionary entry retrieved for this term reflects a grape variety, which is incidental and irrelevant.)

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A state of agreement; harmony; union." Also, by now-obsolete usage: "Agreement by stipulation; compact; covenant; treaty or league." Webster's additionally notes the grammatical sense (agreement of words in gender, number, case) and acknowledges the fine-of-lands meaning directly.

Editorial note: The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow in the abstract — both point toward agreement — but the legal term is more precise and more consequential. In the conveyancing context especially, concord is not merely a metaphor for harmony but a technical procedural event with formal legal effects. A researcher encountering the word in historical pleadings or conveyancing records should not read it as a casual synonym for consensus.

Common Confusion

CONCORD vs. ACCORD: Modern legal usage has largely collapsed the general sense of concord into accord, and the two are frequently treated as interchangeable in discussions of accord and satisfaction. They are not historically identical. Concord in the old authorities specifically followed a trespass and described the agreement itself; accord in modern doctrine is the broader category covering agreements to substitute performance for an existing obligation. Researchers working in pre-nineteenth-century English or American sources should not automatically read concord through the lens of modern accord-and-satisfaction doctrine.

CONCORD (fine of lands) vs. CONCORD (dispute settlement): These two meanings share a word and a root concept — agreement — but operate in entirely different procedural contexts. The fine-of-lands concord is a conveyancing artifact; the trespass concord is a precursor to modern settlement doctrine. Conflating them in historical research leads to misreadings of both pleading records and title documents.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Finis concordiae: The formal Latin designation for the concord in a fine of lands. Literally "the end of the agreement." This phrase appears in older reports and treatises as the technical label for the concord stage of the fine procedure.

Concord (trespass settlement): The informal or extrajudicial agreement by which a wrongdoer and an injured party settled the matter privately, without court judgment. Precursor to what equity and common law courts later formalized as accord and satisfaction.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in colonial American, early republic, or English legal records will encounter concord in two radically different contexts, and the procedural setting is the only reliable guide to which meaning applies. Title chain research and conveyancing records — particularly those involving fines levied before the mid-nineteenth century, when fine-and-recovery procedure was abolished in England and fell out of use in American states — will use concord in the technical conveyancing sense. The cognizor/cognizee terminology and the phrase finis concordiae are reliable markers.

Pleading records, trespass actions, and early settlement documents use concord in the dispute-resolution sense. In these sources, a concord typically appears as the basis for a plea in bar — the defendant arguing that the parties had already reached agreement and that the plaintiff's action was therefore extinguished.

Louisiana researchers should be alert: Black's references French and Spanish grants in Louisiana in connection with fine-related terminology, though the fine-of-lands procedure itself was not transplanted into civil law Louisiana practice. The word concord may appear in translated grant documents in a general agreement sense rather than as a term of art.

The maxim Concordare leges legibus est optimus interpretandi modus — "to make laws agree with laws is the best mode of interpreting them" — appears in Hale's Maxims and is occasionally cited in statutory construction arguments. Researchers encountering this maxim in briefs or treatises should recognize it as an interpretive principle, not a procedural rule.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries converge on both core meanings without significant disagreement. Bouvier and Black's (2nd Ed.) are the most precise on the fine-of-lands meaning, both specifying the deforciant's acknowledgment as the operative act and correctly identifying the cognizor/cognizee terminology. Rapalje & Lawrence usefully presents both meanings in sequence and flags the finis concordiae designation, making it the most navigable of the shelf sources for a researcher uncertain which meaning applies.

Black's (1st Ed.) entries are fragmentary as extracted, but the surviving text confirms the trespass-settlement meaning and reproduces the Hale maxim. Burrill's entry is similarly incomplete in the extracted form.

What the historical dictionaries largely omit: any guidance on how concord functioned in American practice as distinguished from English practice, and any treatment of the term's decline. Fine-and-recovery procedure was abolished in England by the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833, and American jurisdictions had largely abandoned or never adopted the procedure by the mid-nineteenth century. Researchers will not find this transitional history in the shelf dictionaries; it must be supplied from treatises and statutory history.

Jurisdictional Note

Fine-of-lands procedure, and with it the technical conveyancing sense of concord, was never uniformly adopted across American jurisdictions and was abolished or superseded earliest in states that moved quickly to statutory conveyancing. The trespass-settlement meaning of concord survives conceptually in modern accord-and-satisfaction doctrine across all common law jurisdictions, though the word itself has been displaced by accord in contemporary usage.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Fines and Recoveries (for the conveyancing context and the procedural stages of levying a fine, including the concord's role)
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Accord and Satisfaction (for the modern doctrinal descendant of the trespass-settlement sense)

CONCORDmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

government; French and Spanish grants in ment of the declaration is traversed and is- Louisiana.

CONCORDmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In the old process of levy-

CONCORDmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

amends shall be made for the breach or wrong; a compromise or an accord. In old practice. An agreement between two or more, upon a trespass committed, by way of amends or satisfaction for it. Plowd. 5, 6, 8. Concordare leges legibus est optimus interpretandi modus. To make laws agree with laws is the best mode of interpreting them. Halk. Max. 70.

CONCORDn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A state of agreement; harmony; union. Love quarrels oft in pleasing concord end. Milton. Agreement by stipulation; compact; covenant; treaty or league. [Obs.] The concord made between Henry and Roderick. Davies. Agreement of words with one another, in gender, number, person, or case. An agreement between the parties to a fine of land in reference to the manner in which it should pass, being an acknowledgment that the land in question belonged to the complainant. See Fine. Burril. An agreeable combination of tones simultaneously heard; a consonant chord; consonance; harmony.

CONCORDn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A variety of American grape, with large dark blue (almost black) grapes in compact clusters.

CONCORDv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To agree; to act together. [Obs.] Clarendon.

concordnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/concord#English) • CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) • via Kaikki (https://kaikki.org/dictionary/English/)
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. The source address is the current Wiktionary page, with its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A variety of sweet American grape, with large dark blue (almost black) grapes in compact clusters; a Concord grape.

Concordname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Concord#English) • CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) • via Kaikki (https://kaikki.org/dictionary/English/)
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. The source address is the current Wiktionary page, with its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A census-designated place in Jefferson County, Alabama. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A town in Cleburne County, Arkansas. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A city in Contra Costa County, California. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Sussex County, Delaware. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A town in Pike County, Georgia. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A village in Morgan County, Illinois. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A township and unincorporated community therein, in DeKalb County, Indiana. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A city in Lewis County, Kentucky. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A township in Somerset County, Maine. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and a site of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A village in Jackson County, Michigan. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Dodge County, Minnesota. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A census-designated place in St. Louis County, Missouri. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Callaway County, Missouri. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Pemiscot County, Missouri. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A village in Dixon County, Nebraska. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | The capital city of New Hampshire, United States, and the county seat of Merrimack County. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A town and hamlet in Erie County, New York. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A neighborhood of Staten Island, New York. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A city, the county seat of Cabarrus County, North Carolina. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Clermont County, Ohio. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Knox County, Tennessee. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Cherokee County, Texas. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Leon County, Texas. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Rusk County, Texas. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A town and census-designated place in Essex County, Vermont. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A census-designated place in Appomattox County and Campbell County, Virginia. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Brunswick County, Virginia. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | An unincorporated community in Gloucester County, Virginia. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A town and unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. | Any of several places: | A number of places in the United States: | A number of other townships in the United States, listed under Concord Township. | Any of several places: | A suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. | Any of several places: | A suburb and industrial district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. | Any of several places: | A village in the town of Washington, Tyne and Wear, England (OS grid ref NZ3057). | Alternative letter-case form of concord (“Concord grape”). | Concorde

concordnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A state of agreement; harmony; union. | An agreement by stipulation; a compact; a covenant; a treaty or league. | Agreement of words with one another, in gender, number, person, or case. | An agreement between the parties to a fine of land in reference to the manner in which it should pass, being an acknowledgment that the land in question belonged to the complainant. See fine. | An agreeable combination of tones simultaneously heard; a consonant chord; a consonance; a harmony.

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