Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning "uncovered" or "in a state of disrepair," applied specifically to a church or ecclesiastical structure that had fallen into structural neglect — most commonly, one lacking an adequate roof or covering. The term described a physical condition of a building rather than a legal status, but it carried legal consequence within the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts, which had authority over the maintenance and repair of church fabric.
Common Confusion
*Discooperta* and *discovert* appear in close proximity in Burrill's own entry, and the visual similarity of the two words creates a real risk of conflation in historical research. They are entirely distinct: *discooperta* is a descriptor of physical condition (an uncovered or ruinous building), while *discovert* is a descriptor of personal legal status (a woman free from the legal disabilities of coverture). The shared Latin prefix and the similarity to the English word "discover" compound the confusion. When reading ecclesiastical court records or commentaries on the *Statute of Circumspecte Agatis*, confirm which term is actually present before drawing any conclusions.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *discooperta* will almost certainly be working in the narrow channel of medieval and early modern English ecclesiastical law, particularly disputes over the obligation to maintain church buildings. The term appears in the context of the *Statute of Circumspecte Agatis* (1285), which defined the boundary between ecclesiastical and royal court jurisdiction. That statute confirmed ecclesiastical courts' power to hear cases involving churches that were *discooperta* — a jurisdictional line that mattered enormously in practice because it determined which forum could compel repair and impose penalties.
The principal trap for researchers is confusion between *discooperta* and *discovert*. Burrill himself cross-references *discovert* directly, and the two terms are superficially similar in spelling. They are unrelated in meaning: *discooperta* describes a building's physical condition; *discovert* (from the Norman French *couverture*) describes the legal status of a woman not under coverture. A researcher searching for one in a historical source may inadvertently pull results for the other, particularly in manuscript or early print sources where spelling was unstandardized.
The term has no practical life in modern law. Its research value is historical: it surfaces in materials concerning the repair obligations of rectors, vicars, and parishioners in pre-Reformation and early post-Reformation England, and in the jurisprudential literature surrounding the limits of ecclesiastical court authority. Coke's commentary in *2 Institutes* at page 489 and the citation to Fleta (lib. 2, c. 60, § 28) are the anchor references for understanding how the term was used in context.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the primary historical dictionary source for this entry, and its treatment is characteristically compressed: a Latin gloss, a jurisdictional note, the two key authority citations, and a cross-reference to *discovert*. The entry does exactly what a practitioner's dictionary needed to do — locate the term in its statutory context and send the reader to Coke and Fleta for substance.
What Burrill does not do is explain the underlying legal framework: why a church being *discooperta* triggered ecclesiastical jurisdiction rather than common law jurisdiction, or what remedies were available. For that context, the *Statute of Circumspecte Agatis* itself and Coke's *2 Institutes* commentary are essential supplements. Fleta, the late thirteenth-century legal treatise, provides the earliest juristic treatment and situates the term within the broader taxonomy of ecclesiastical offenses cognizable by church courts.
No other major historical law dictionaries in the standard reference shelf — Jacob, Tomlin, Black's early editions — appear to carry this term, reflecting how narrowly confined its usage was even at its peak.
Jurisdictional Note
*Discooperta* is specific to the ecclesiastical law of medieval and early modern England. It has no recognized equivalent in Scots law, canon law generally, or any modern common law jurisdiction. Researchers working in comparative ecclesiastical law should treat this as an English term of art without assuming parallel doctrines elsewhere.