Definition
An obsolete writ of English law directed to the king's escheator, issued upon the death of a tenant holding land in capite (directly from the Crown) where that tenant's son and heir also died while still under age and in the king's wardship. The writ commanded the escheator to empanel twelve good and lawful men to inquire what lands and tenements had, by reason of the tenant's death, come (devenerunt) to the king. The writ was a mechanism for formally establishing the Crown's feudal entitlement to lands that escheated or reverted following the extinguishment of the immediate tenancy line.
Core Elements
The writ required four conditions to be satisfied before it issued:
1. A tenant holding land in capite — meaning the tenant held directly of the Crown, not through an intermediate lord.
2. Death of that tenant — triggering the king's potential feudal rights over the land.
3. An heir who was a minor (within age) and already in the king's custody — meaning the wardship had already attached.
4. Death of that heir before reaching majority — the double death that gave rise to the specific inquiry the writ commanded.
The escheator's duty upon receiving the writ was to conduct a formal inquest by jury to identify and value the lands now falling to the king.
Why It Matters in Research
DEVENERUNT is encountered almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal materials — Year Books, plea rolls, and early treatises on tenure and escheats. Researchers will not find it in American legal sources because the feudal tenure structure that generated it never took root in the colonies; the writ belongs entirely to the English common law inheritance.
The term is important for contextualizing the broader machinery of feudal tenure: it sits at the intersection of wardship, tenure in capite, and escheat — three concepts that recur heavily in pre-1660 English land law and that shaped doctrines later carried, in modified form, into early Anglo-American property law. A researcher working through English land records from the medieval period through the Court of Wards (abolished 1646) may encounter references to this writ in connection with inquisitions post mortem.
The writ's name is also a navigational clue: it derives from the Latin perfect tense devenerunt ("they have come"), which is the operative verb of the writ's command — "what lands have come to the king." Burrill's is the most useful of the historical dictionaries for understanding this etymology, as it links the writ's name directly to its function. Researchers who encounter the word devenerunt in a medieval Latin document should determine whether it appears as the writ's formal name or simply as descriptive Latin verb usage within a different document type.
No American statutory or constitutional analog exists. The writ has no modern successor.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the essential substance: DEVENERUNT was an obsolete writ directed to the escheator, triggered by the death of a tenant in capite and the subsequent death of a minor heir in wardship, commanding a jury inquiry into lands coming to the king.
Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence cite Dyer's Reports and Termes de la Ley as authorities, placing the writ in recognized Tudor-era legal practice. Burrill's adds the most analytical value by explaining the Latin derivation and explicitly noting that the writ's name tracks its operative command — the lands that "have come" (devenerunt) to the king. Rapalje & Lawrence is the most concise and refers the reader to Wharton as the underlying source.
None of the historical dictionaries address what happened procedurally after the escheator returned the inquest, nor do they situate DEVENERUNT relative to the broader inquisition post mortem practice. Researchers needing that context should turn to Coke's commentary on Littleton or Blackstone's Commentaries on the tenure and wardship chapters.
Jurisdictional Note
DEVENERUNT is exclusively an English common law writ with no American counterpart. The feudal tenure system that necessitated it — particularly tenure in capite and royal wardship — was effectively abolished in England by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 and never transplanted to the American colonies as operative law.