Definition
An old Latin term appearing in medieval English records denoting a drove or drift-way — a common road or track along which cattle were driven. The term describes a recognized right-of-way used for moving livestock, distinct from ordinary highways or footpaths.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering drova in old English records, conveyances, or manor court rolls should treat it as a term of art describing a specific type of easement or customary right, not a general road. Drift-ways and droveways carried distinct legal implications in agrarian landholding: they were often appurtenant to common rights and tied to specific manorial customs, which means their scope and enforceability depended heavily on local usage rather than any uniform rule.
The term surfaces most often in medieval Latin documents — charters, extents, and surveys — where the Latinized drova signals a vernacular Anglo-Norman or Middle English underlying concept. A researcher working in translated abstracts may see "drove" or "driftway" where the original document reads drova; the two are functionally interchangeable, but awareness of the original form helps when searching manuscript sources or untranslated records.
Drova is essentially obsolete in modern legal usage. If a researcher is tracing a historical right-of-way claim — particularly in the context of English common land disputes, enclosure proceedings, or ancient easement arguments — locating drova in a foundational deed or court roll can be significant evidence of a long-established customary right predating formal easement doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary shelf source to address this term directly, and its treatment is brief: drova is defined by reference to Cowell's Interpreter, the early seventeenth-century legal glossary that remains one of the standard authorities on archaic Anglo-Latin legal terminology. Burrill faithfully transmits Cowell's substance — a drove, or drift-way; a common road for driving cattle — without expansion.
No divergence among historical sources is apparent, largely because the term is narrow enough that it does not generate definitional controversy. What historical dictionaries collectively leave unaddressed is the practical legal question of how drova rights were established, quantified, or extinguished in proceedings. For that, researchers must move beyond the dictionary shelf and into primary sources: manorial records, enclosure commissioners' awards, and the treatise literature on common rights.
Jurisdictional Note
Drova is a term of English legal history and has no meaningful American counterpart. In English law, drift-ways and droveways were regulated by manorial custom and, later, by enclosure statutes. Researchers working on English land title or common-right questions should consult sources specific to the relevant county and manor, as local custom governed the character and extent of any drova right.