Definition
An enlargement or expansion, drawn from the Latin *elargare* (to enlarge). In old English law, *elargatio* referred to the act of enlarging a manse, manor, or court by incorporating additional land into its boundaries. The term appears in the Register of Original Writs and reflects the procedural and conveyancing vocabulary of medieval English land law, where precise Latin terminology governed the formal extension of landed estates and their appurtenant jurisdictions.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of narrow historical utility, encountered almost exclusively in Latin legal records, writs, and early English treatises predating the shift to English-language legal drafting. Researchers working in medieval land records, manorial court rolls, or early Chancery materials may encounter *elargatio* in contexts involving boundary disputes, estate administration, or the formal expansion of a lord's demesne.
The key research trap is conflation with the broader procedural use of "enlargement" in English common law — particularly *enlargement* as a term of pleading or *enlargement* of time. Those are distinct concepts with different doctrinal histories. *Elargatio* in its attested sense is strictly a conveyancing and land-description term, not a term of procedure or personal liberty.
Researchers consulting the Register of Original Writs (*Registrum Omnium Brevium*, or *Reg. Orig.*) — the source Burrill cites — should be aware that this work survives in multiple printed editions of varying completeness and that folio references can differ across editions. Burrill's citations to 250b and 255 reflect pagination in a specific printed edition; cross-checking against a reliable facsimile or critical edition is advisable before relying on folio references in formal scholarship.
Because *elargatio* involves the physical and juridical extension of a manse or manor, it connects to the broader complex of manorial land tenure concepts: the distinction between demesne and non-demesne land, the legal definition of a manse (a dwelling with associated land), and the formal processes by which lords consolidated or expanded their holdings. These concepts sit at the intersection of conveyancing practice and manorial jurisdiction, both of which evolved substantially between the Norman Conquest and the Statute of Uses (1535).
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source for this term, and its entry is brief but precise. Burrill defines *elargatio* as an enlargement and specifically glosses *elargatio mansi vel curiae* as the enlargement of a manse, manor, or court by taking in more land — citing the *Registrum Originalium* (*Reg. Orig.*) twice. The entry is descriptive rather than analytical, which is characteristic of Burrill's treatment of Latin terms of limited procedural significance.
No equivalent entry appears in Tomlin's, Bouvier's, or Black's dictionaries in their standard editions, suggesting *elargatio* was recognized as a term of sufficiently narrow and archaic scope that most American and later English legal lexicographers omitted it. Its absence from those sources should not be read as evidence that the term lacked legal force in the period when it was in use — only that its utility faded as Latin was displaced in English legal practice and as the specific manorial structures it described ceased to be operative.
Burrill does not address whether *elargatio* carried any implications for title, tenure, or the rights of tenants on land absorbed into an enlarged manor — a gap that researchers with substantive questions about legal consequences will need to fill from primary sources and specialist secondary literature on manorial law.