CONFIRMATIO - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CONFIRMATIOAuthored

The Law Mind • 880 words

Definition

A Latin term from old English property law referring to the formal conveyance or communication of a right in lands or tenements to a person who already holds possession or some existing estate therein. Confirmatio accomplished one of two distinct legal purposes: (1) making a voidable estate sure and unavoidable — that is, curing defects in title or removing grounds upon which an estate might otherwise be defeated; or (2) increasing or enlarging the scope of a particular estate already held. It was not a fresh grant of new property rights but rather a strengthening or perfecting of rights already in existence.

The classic maxim captured in Burrill captures the doctrine's core logic: confirmatio est prioris juris et dominii adepti firmatio — a confirmation is a making firm of a former right and ownership already obtained. It adds nothing new; it consolidates and confirms what was already there.

Common Confusion

Confirmatio is sometimes read as equivalent to a fresh conveyance or grant, but this conflation misunderstands its function. A grant transfers a right the grantor holds and the grantee lacks. A confirmatio operates on a right the recipient already possesses — or purports to possess — and solidifies its legal standing. Relatedly, confirmatio should be distinguished from ratification in the modern sense. Ratification typically applies to acts done without authority; confirmatio in the historical property context applies to estates already in possession but vulnerable to challenge or limited in extent.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Confirmatio crescens: An enlarging confirmation. This subtype does not merely cure defects in an existing estate but actually expands it — for example, converting a life estate into a fee simple, or adding to the duration or extent of the estate the grantee already holds. It operates prospectively on the quality or quantum of the existing interest.

Confirmatio perficiens: A perfecting confirmation. This subtype removes a defect or voidability from an estate without altering its scope or nature. Where the grantee holds an estate that could be defeated — perhaps because the original conveyance was irregular or conditional in a way that exposed the estate to challenge — the confirmatio perficiens removes that vulnerability and renders the estate secure.

Why It Matters in Research

Confirmatio appears most heavily in sources covering medieval and early modern English land law, and researchers working in those periods will encounter it in deeds, conveyancing manuals, and treatises organized around the classical taxonomy of assurances. Shepard's Touchstone of Common Assurances and Blackstone's Commentaries (Book II) are the primary reference points — both are cited in the historical dictionary entries and represent the doctrinal framework within which confirmatio was understood.

Researchers should be alert to two traps. First, the term falls largely out of use in American common law. American conveyancing developed along different lines, and the functional work once done by confirmatio is handled in modern practice through instruments like quitclaim deeds, title curative statutes, or estoppel doctrines — none of which bear the name. Searching American sources for confirmatio will yield sparse results; the researcher should pivot to those modern functional equivalents when tracing the doctrine forward.

Second, the distinction between the two subtypes — crescens and perficiens — matters for interpreting historical deeds. A document that enlarges an estate has different legal consequences than one that merely secures it, and early sources do not always make the subtype explicit. The instrument's operative language must be read against the grantee's existing estate to determine which function the confirmatio performed.

Historical Dictionary Support

The three source dictionaries converge on the same functional definition — a conveyance that either cures voidability or enlarges a pre-existing estate — and all trace to the same authoritative sources: Shepard's Touchstone of Common Assurances and Blackstone's Commentaries, Book II, chapter 20. This consistency reflects a settled doctrinal category rather than a contested one.

Burrill contributes the most analytical depth, supplying the Latin maxim that explains the doctrine's theoretical foundation: confirmatio consolidates and confirms existing right rather than creating new right. This is the key conceptual limit on the instrument's operation, and it is the point historical dictionaries handle best.

What the historical dictionaries do not address is the doctrine's fate in American jurisdictions. They present confirmatio as an operative category of English conveyancing without flagging that American law largely absorbed its functions into other instruments. A researcher relying solely on these sources would not realize how thoroughly the term disappears from American practice and would need to look elsewhere to trace the functional continuity.

Black's 2nd edition expands marginally on the 1st by explicitly naming confirmatio crescens as a subtype, which is useful for researchers encountering that phrase in historical deeds.

Jurisdictional Note

Confirmatio as a named legal category is a creature of English common law and appears almost exclusively in sources predating or contemporaneous with early American reception of English property law. It did not become a working term of American conveyancing practice and is effectively absent from American case law as an operative doctrine. Researchers working in English legal history or early colonial American property records are the primary audience.

CONFIRMATIOmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

The conveyance of an estate, or the communication of a right that one hath in or unto lands or tenements, to another that hath the possession thereof, or some other estate therein, whereby a void- able estate is made sure and unavoidable, or whereby a particular estate is increased or enlarged. Shep. Touch. 311; 2 Bl. Comm. 325.

CONFIRMATIOmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Lat. [from confirmare, q. v.] In old English law. A confirmation. Confirmatio est prioris juris et dominii adepti firmatio, cum prima firmi tate donationis; nihil enim novi attribuit, sed jus vetus consolidat et confirmat. A confirmation is a making firm of a former right and ownership already obtained, with the first strength of the gift, [i. e. with all the strength it could have had from the original gift]; for it confers nothing new, but consolidates and confirms the old right. Bract. fol. 58. Confirmatio est nulla, ubi donum præcedens est invalidum. A confirmation is null, where the preceding gift is invalid; that is, it has no effect to strengthen a void estate. Co. Litt. 295 b. See Confirmation. Confirmatio omnes supplet defectus, licet id quod actum est ab initio non valuit. A confirmation supplies all defects, although Confirmare was used as an ordinary that which has been done was not originally word in deeds of gift, in the time of Bracvalid. Co. Litt. 295 b. In Fleta, the ton. Dedi et concessi, et hac præsenti chartâ maxim is given in fewer words: Confirmatio mea confirmavi; I have given and granted, omnem supplet defectum. Confirmation supand by this my present charter have conplies all defect. Fleta, lib. 3, c. 3, § 7. Confirmed. Bract. fol. 34 b. In this applica-firmatio supplevit defectum. Bract. fol. 271. tion, it merely signified to give additional strength to what was already strong, and In old English law. A perfecting conto give it at the same time, that is, by the firmation. A confirmation which tends and same instrument; thus strictly preserving serves to confirm and make good a wrongthe etymology of the word; (con, together, ful and defeasible estate, [by adding the or simul.) Est confirmare id quod prius right to the possession, or defeasible seisin,] firmum fuit simul firmare. Id. ibid. It is or to make a conditional estate absolute, [by used in the same sense in Magna Charta, discharging the condition]. Shep. Touch. (c. 1). Concessimus Deo, et hac præsenti (by Preston), 311. charta nostra confirmavimus. Confirmare was afterwards used as the effective word in deeds of confirmation, properly so called. See Confirmation. Noverint universi, &c. me A. de B. ratificasse, approbasse et confirmasse, &c. Know all men, &c. that I, A. of B. have ratified, approved and confirmed. Litt. sect. 515. In this latter application, confirmare signified to make strong that which before was weak or defective. As early as the time of Fleta, the definition given by Bracton (supra) was modified so as to read, Confirmare est id quod prius infirmum fuit simul firmare. Fleta, lib. 3, c. 14, § 5. And this is quoted by Lord Coke. Co. Litt. 295. Confirmare nemo potest prius quam jus ei acciderit. No one can confirm before the right accrues to him. 10 Co. 48. Confirmat usum qui tollit abusum. He confirms the use [of a thing] who removes the abuse [of it]. Moor, 764.

CONFIRMATIOmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

The conveyance of an estate, or the communication of a right that one hath in or unto lands or tenements, to another that hath the possession thereof, or some other estate therein, whereby a voidable estate is made sure and unavoidable, or whereby a particular estate is increased or —Confirmatio crescens. enlarged. Shep. Touch. 311; 2 Bl. Comm. 325. An enlarging confirmation; one which enlarges a rightful estate. Shep. Touch. 311.—Confirmatio diminuens. A diminishing confirmation. A_ confirmation which tends and serves,to diminish and abridge the services whereby a tenant doth hold, operating as a release of part of the services. Shep. Touch. 311.—Confirmatio perficiens. A confirmation which makes valid a wrongful and defeasible title, or makes a conditional estate absolute. Shep. Touch. 311.

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