Definition
A Latin term from feudal and old English law meaning acquisition — specifically, the acquisition of land or property by means other than inheritance. Conquisitio denoted property that a person obtained through purchase, grant, or other voluntary transfer, as distinguished from property descending by hereditary succession. The term belongs to the vocabulary of feudal land tenure and appears primarily in historical legal sources rather than in modern practice.
Common Confusion
Conquisitio is closely related to, and often used interchangeably with, the Latin terms conquestus and conquest in their feudal legal senses. In this context, "conquest" does not carry its modern military meaning but rather its archaic legal meaning of acquisition — land purchased or otherwise obtained by a person's own act. Researchers encountering "conquest" in feudal property texts should read it as conquisitio in substance. See CONQUEST (feudal sense) and CONQUESTUS.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap is the word "conquest." In modern English, conquest signals military victory and territorial seizure. In feudal property law — and throughout the corpus of English land tenure materials — conquest and conquisitio mean acquisition by act of the party, the opposite of descent. A researcher reading Blackstone or earlier feudal authorities who encounters "conquest of lands" without this framework will fundamentally misread the passage.
The term surfaces in discussions of the feudal distinction between heritage and conquest — the line between land that came to a person by blood (inheritance) and land that came by the person's own act (purchase, grant, gift). This distinction had practical consequences for the direction of descent: in some jurisdictions and periods, land of conquest descended differently than land of heritage, particularly regarding the half-blood and lateral heirs.
Conquisitio rarely appears in post-medieval materials as a live operative term. When it surfaces, it is almost always in historical exposition, treatise commentary, or glossaries of feudal terms. Researchers should not expect to find it in modern statutes, cases, or transactional documents.
The connection to Spelman's Glossarium (cited by Burrill) is worth noting: Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum is one of the foundational reference works for feudal Latin terminology, and researchers working in medieval English property law will benefit from consulting it alongside Blackstone's Commentaries, Book II.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree without variation: conquisitio means acquisition in feudal and old English law, and all three anchor the definition to the same passage in Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Comm. 242). There is no divergence among the sources on meaning.
Burrill's entry adds the most value by tracing the term to its Latin root (conquærere), cross-referencing Spelman's Glossarium, and directing the reader to the companion entries for conquestus and conquest. This cross-referencing structure reflects Burrill's characteristic approach of situating feudal Latin terms within their terminological family. Black's entries in both editions are more compact and function essentially as glosses.
None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the feudal distinction between land of conquest and land of heritage, or on the succession consequences of that distinction. Researchers who need that doctrinal context must go beyond the dictionary sources to Blackstone's text itself and to feudal law treatises such as Littleton's Tenures and Coke on Littleton.
Jurisdictional Note
Conquisitio and its associated doctrine belong to the English feudal system and were carried into early American law through the reception of English common law. The conquest/heritage distinction in descent rules was largely abolished in American states and by English statutory reform in the nineteenth century. The term has no operative role in any modern jurisdiction.