COTT

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

COTTAuthored
The Law Mind • 789 words
Definition
"Cott" does not function as a standalone legal term of art in the common law tradition. The word appears in historical legal sources primarily as a variant spelling or abbreviation of "cot" or "cott-land," referring to a small parcel of land held by a cottager — a peasant or laborer who occupied a cottage with a small attached plot under feudal tenure. In this narrow historical usage, a cott was essentially the physical holding associated with a cottar or cottager, a class of unfree or semi-free tenant below the villeinage level in the medieval English manorial system. The term should not be confused with any modern legal category. Its significance is confined almost entirely to historical land tenure research.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Cott" appears in modern English only as a surname of Old English origin and as a place name designating two small settlements in England and Scotland — a suburb of Dartington in Devon and a hamlet in Shetland. Historical common usage: Webster's 1913 does not contain a primary entry for "cott" as a common noun with independent meaning. Editorial note: The common-language usage of "cott" is purely toponymic and onomastic today. Researchers encountering the term in historical legal instruments or manorial records should resist mapping modern place-name or surname meanings onto what was, in medieval English law, a tenure classification tied to land.
Common Confusion
"Cott" is easily confused with "cot," "cote," and "cottar" (also spelled "cottier" or "cotter"), which are related but distinct. A cott or cot-land was the holding itself; a cottar was the person holding it. The terms appear interchangeably in some historical sources, creating ambiguity in manorial surveys and estate records. Additionally, researchers should not conflate this feudal-tenure sense with the modern domestic meaning of "cot" (a small bed or cradle), which is entirely unrelated.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in English legal history — particularly manorial records, Domesday Book commentary, surveys of feudal tenure, and early conveyancing documents — may encounter "cott" or "cott-land" as a descriptor of a tenant's holding. The term signals the bottom tier of the feudal land hierarchy, below villein tenure, and carries implications about the nature of services owed, rights attached to the land, and the legal capacity of the holder. The primary research trap is anachronism: a "cott" in a 13th-century manorial extent is a technical tenure classification, not a casual reference to a small building. Misreading it as merely descriptive of a dwelling can cause a researcher to miss the tenure-law implications entirely. Bouvier's Law Dictionary, the sole historical source provided, does not contain a direct entry for "cott" as a legal term — the source material supplied under this heading appears to be a fragment on municipal corporation powers and water-works injunctions, which is plainly misfiled or misattributed to this term. Researchers should treat that passage as irrelevant to "cott" and consult historical sources on English feudal tenure directly. The Law Mind corpus connections most useful here are entries touching on villeinage, copyhold, tenure, and manorial courts. Feudal land classification terms as a category are notoriously undertreated in American legal dictionaries (including Bouvier's), which focused on the republican land law of the new states rather than the medieval English hierarchy that nominally underlay it.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary does not provide a substantive entry for "cott" as a legal term, and the passage attributed to it in the source material — concerning a city's power to build waterworks and a property owner's standing to enjoin a municipal corporation — is clearly misassociated with this headword. That passage belongs to entries on municipal corporations, injunctions, or taxpayer standing, not to any land-tenure classification. Older English legal dictionaries, including Jacob's Law Dictionary and Termes de la Ley, treat related terms (cot, cottar, cottager) as part of the feudal tenure vocabulary, but "cott" as a standalone headword is rare even in those sources. Cowell's Interpreter (1607) and Blount's Nomo-Lexicon address cottager tenure in broader discussions of villeinage. The absence of robust dictionary support for this exact spelling reflects both the orthographic instability of Middle English legal terminology and the term's obsolescence well before the period when systematic legal lexicography took hold.
Jurisdictional Note
This term has no modern jurisdictional application in any common law system. Its relevance is confined to historical English land law, primarily pre-1660. Researchers in Scottish legal history may encounter related terminology in a different feudal framework, but the Scots law equivalents are distinct.
Related Terms
Cottar | Cottager | Cot-land | Villeinage | Copyhold | Manorial tenure | Feudal tenure | Domesday | Villain | Ancient demesne | Tenure | Freehold
COTTmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
Where a city had power to build water- works, the fact that by so doing it would violate contract rights of an existing water company does not give an individual prop- erty owner the right to enjoin the city on the ground that his taxes would be in- creased thereby; 60 Fed. Rep. 961. Equity will not enjoin a municipal cor- poration in the exercise of its lawful pow- ers, unless the proposed act is ultra vires and would work irreparable injury: 48 Fed. Rep. 308; but a resident taxpayer and real estate owner is entitled to bring a suit to enjoin the execution of a municipal contract illegally awarded, whatever may be alleged to be his ulterior purpose; 8 D. R. Pa. 266; 137 Pa. 561. Where a statute creates a new offence and neglects the penalty, the ancillary remedy of injunction may be claimed as well as the penalty; Brett, L. C. Mod. Eq. 327. An injunction against a newspaper to re- strain it from copying literary matter from another newspaper will not be refused be- cause such is the practice of newspapers ; [1892] 3 Ch. 489, where the cases are col- lected. An injunction will not lie to re- strain the publication of an encyclopedia of the same name as complainant's, except as to copyright articles, where defendant has used no means to lead the public to be- lieve that its publication is that of com- plainant; 44 Fed. Rep. 793. In England, equity, in special cases of contracts for personal services, will restrain the violation of the contract, whenever the legal remedy of damages would be inade- quate and the contract is of such a kind that its negative specific enforcement is possible. This rule was at first applied to contracts which were in form expressly neg- ative, but has since been extended to affirm- ative contracts which imply negative stipu- lations; Pom. Eq. Jur. § 1343; 1 De G., M. & G. 604; L. R. 16 Eq. 149; 1 McCra. 558, 565; 1 Holmes 253. But where there was a contract for personal service containing a stipulation by the employed that he will "act exclusively for" his employer, the employed will not be restrained by injunc- tion from entering the employ of another person in the absence of a negative cove- nant in the contract, express or implied, which is clear and definite; 75 L. T. Rep. 526; 47 N. J. Eq. 270. The American cases are said to have us- ually either refused to follow the English decisions or have considerably modified them; see 53 Cal. 201; 8 Baxt. 54, 242; 42 Md. 460. Equity will restrain a breach of his contract by a baseball player who had contracted to play with the plaintiff; 8 С. C. R. 57; contra, 8 C. C. R. 337; see also 42 Fed. Rep. 198. An injunction will lie where the remedy at law, though there be one, is inadequate; thus: to protect an innocent purchaser of the stock and good-will of a business by enjoining the sale thereof by the sheriff, where the damages recoverable would be only for the value of the stock, without compensation for the loss of business; 138 U. S. 271; to prevent the illegal sale of a church-pew under an attachment, upon the ground that it would be an outrage to the owners' religious feelings; 27 Weekly Law Bull. (Ohio) 20; to prevent the illegal issue of corporate bonds; 118 Ind. 22; 5 Wall. 74; to prevent the destruction of ornamental trees on the plaintiff's grounds; 7 Md. 408; to restrain the cutting off of the supply of natural gas furnished under a contract; 50 N. W. Rep. (Ia.) 283; where the redress at law would be inadequate by reason of the defendant's insolvency; 133 N. Y. 499. An injunction will lie to enjoin a public nui- sance if it be continuous and peculiarly in- jures the plaintiff or his property; 135 N. Y. 239. An injunction will not be granted on the application of a private person, to protect purely public rights; Beach, Inj. § 13; 139 III. 419; nor, except in a great emergency, to interfere with public im- provements; 40 N. J. Eq. 350; nor to re- strain the abuse of a public trust, unless the complainant can show some peculiar inter- est therein; 102 III. 379; nor to compel the lessees of an opera house to allow the plain- tiff to use the house under a contract there- for, where the effect would be to compel the lessee to break a contract with an inno- cent third party; 43 Fed. Rep. 831; nor to prevent the maintenance of a nuisance on a highway where it could be abated by in- dictment; 49 N. J. Eq. 11. Where a crim- inal prosecution is threatened under color of an invalid statute for the purpose of compelling the relinquishment of a proper- ty right, an injunction will lie; 80 Fed. Rep. 218. Criminal acts may be restrained by injunc- tion if they are of such a nature as to con- stitute a public nuisance; 147 Mass. 550. This recent development of equity jurisdic- tion is well settled. Its efficiency has been in preventing the evils of strikes. See Judge Taft's Address, Report of Amer. Bar Asso., 1895, p. 265; 6 L. R. Eq. 551; 51 Fed. Rep. 260; 54 Fed. Rep. 730; 60 Fed. Rep. 803; 63 Fed. Rep. 310; 62 Fed. Rep. 824; 158 U.S. 564;
Cottname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
A surname from Old English. | A small suburb of Dartington, South Hams district, Devon, England (OS grid ref SX7861). | A hamlet by Weisdale Voe, Mainland, Shetland Islands council area, Scotland (OS grid ref HU3749)
cottnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Obsolete spelling of cot (“simple bed”).

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