Definition
A Latin verb used in old English law meaning "to touch," "to be connected with," or "to be of kin to." The term appears in medieval legal texts to express a relationship of blood connection or familial affinity between persons. Its primary legal function was to describe whether individuals stood in a recognized kindred relationship to one another — a determination that carried significant consequences for inheritance, wardship, and other rights governed by consanguinity.
The phrase most commonly encountered in the sources is *qui sese non contingunt*, meaning "who are not of kin to each other," used to distinguish persons lacking a cognizable blood relationship from those who possessed one.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in medieval Latin legal texts, particularly in Bracton's *De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae*, and will not be encountered in modern legal instruments or statutes. Researchers working with early English common law sources — plea rolls, treatises, or Year Books — may encounter *contingere* or its derivative forms (*contingit*, *contingunt*, *contingentes*) in passages addressing descent, inheritance disputes, or the identification of heirs.
The key research trap is treating this as a term of art with a fixed technical meaning beyond its plain Latin sense. *Contingere* in these texts functions more as descriptive Latin than as a defined legal term with specific doctrinal content. Its significance is contextual: it signals that the passage is addressing a question of kinship, which in turn should direct the researcher toward the surrounding legal framework governing consanguinity and descent in the period.
Researchers using the Law Mind corpus should note that this term bridges the Latin legal vocabulary of Bracton and the broader common law tradition on inheritance. Connections run to discussions of *consanguinity*, *propinquity*, *heirs of the body*, and the rules of descent that would later be systematized in English statute and equity.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary historical dictionary source for this term, and his entry is brief but accurate. He correctly situates *contingere* in old English law, correctly translates the term, and correctly identifies the Bracton source (*fol. 28 b*). No meaningful divergence exists among historical sources because the term's usage is narrow and its appearances in the record are limited. Burrill does not elaborate on the doctrinal context in which the term operates, which is the chief gap for researchers: knowing what *contingere* means in translation is less useful than understanding why kinship status mattered in the legal proceedings where Bracton invoked it.
Historical dictionaries of this period generally treat Latin terms of this kind as vocabulary glosses rather than doctrinal analyses. The researcher who needs to understand the legal consequences of persons being *non contingentes* — not of kin — must look beyond the dictionary entry to Bracton's own text and the secondary literature on medieval English inheritance law.