Definition
A corporeal hereditament is a tangible, physical interest in land — property that can be seen, touched, and possessed — that is capable of being inherited. The term belongs to the classical common law taxonomy of real property and stands in contrast to incorporeal hereditaments, which are rights or privileges attached to land (such as easements, profits à prendre, or rent charges) that have no physical substance themselves.
In practical terms, a corporeal hereditament is the land itself, together with whatever is permanently affixed to it: the soil, structures, trees, and minerals in place. The defining characteristic is physicality. If the property interest can be physically occupied and directly enjoyed — rather than exercised as a right over another's land — it is corporeal.
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Common Confusion
CORPOREAL HEREDITAMENT vs. INCORPOREAL HEREDITAMENT: The pairing is fundamental to traditional real property analysis but collapses easily in casual use. A corporeal hereditament is the physical thing — the land and its fixtures. An incorporeal hereditament is an abstract right growing out of, or burdening, land — an easement of way, a right of common, an advowson. Both are hereditaments in that both descend to heirs, but only one has tangible existence. Researchers encountering either term in historical sources should immediately determine which side of this divide the author is addressing, because the rules governing transfer, descent, and remedies historically differed between the two categories.
CORPOREAL HEREDITAMENT vs. CORPOREAL PROPERTY: These overlap but are not identical. Corporeal property is the broader category — any tangible property, including personal property. A corporeal hereditament is specifically a tangible property interest in land that is inheritable. Rapalje & Lawrence treats corporeal property as simply tangible property generally, distinguished from incorporeal property such as choses in action and easements. The hereditament classification adds the inheritance dimension and confines the concept to real property.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is architectural vocabulary for classical common law real property. It appears heavily in English legal treatises from Blackstone forward and migrates into American sources through the nineteenth century. Researchers working with deeds, conveyancing manuals, title abstracts, or equity pleadings from the 1700s through the early 1900s will encounter it as a term of art. Its appearance in a document signals that the drafter was working within the traditional freehold property framework.
The term's research significance lies primarily in what it excludes. When a historical instrument conveys "all corporeal hereditaments," it is deliberately excluding incorporeal rights — easements, rent charges, rights of common — which required separate, explicit conveyance under strict common law rules. Misreading a historical grant that enumerates only corporeal hereditaments as conveying appurtenant easements is a recurring trap in title research.
The term largely disappears from American statutory and judicial drafting over the course of the twentieth century. Modern instruments tend to use plain-language formulations ("land and all improvements thereon") or statutory catch-all language. When you encounter corporeal hereditament in a modern context, it is almost certainly either a quotation from an older instrument, a treatise discussing common law history, or a jurisdiction (typically a common law country outside the United States) that preserved the classical vocabulary longer. British and Commonwealth sources remain more likely to deploy the term with precision.
The corpus distinction to hold in mind: incorporeal hereditament entries in historical dictionaries are typically much longer and more contested than corporeal hereditament entries, because the incorporeal category did the heavy analytical lifting in common law property doctrine. Corporeal hereditament was, in a sense, the default — land is land — while the incorporeal category required careful enumeration and doctrinal justification.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence does not provide a standalone entry for corporeal hereditament, directing the reader instead to the general HEREDITAMENT entry and treating the corporeal/incorporeal distinction as a subdivision within that larger concept. The editors define corporeal property as "tangible property, as distinguished from incorporeal property, which consists of choses in action, easements, &c." This framing is consistent with Blackstone's foundational treatment in the Commentaries, where corporeal hereditaments are described as such as affect the senses and may be seen and handled, while incorporeal are not the object of sensation. Most nineteenth-century American legal dictionaries follow Blackstone's structure without meaningful modification, treating the corporeal/incorporeal divide as settled doctrine rather than contested ground. What historical sources largely omit is any discussion of the term's practical obsolescence — they treat it as live vocabulary because, in their era, it largely was.
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Jurisdictional Note
The corporeal/incorporeal hereditament distinction retains doctrinal relevance in England, Wales, and other common law jurisdictions that preserved classical real property vocabulary in modern statutes. In the United States, the category has been absorbed into general real property terminology; most American courts and legislatures abandoned the classical hereditament taxonomy in favor of simpler formulations during the twentieth century, though the term may surface in older recorded instruments still affecting title.
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