Definition
An abbreviation appearing in legal manuscripts, pleadings, and correspondence with two distinct uses:
1. (Procedural correspondence) Short for "enclosure" or "enclosures," indicating that a document is accompanied by additional materials — exhibits, copies of instruments, affidavits, or other attachments. Used in the heading or footer of legal letters and filings to signal that the text alone does not constitute the complete transmission.
2. (Historical law French) An abbreviated form appearing in early common law sources, particularly in contexts related to demesne tenure and the rights of chase. Burrill records the abbreviation in connection with the phrase "in his demesne as of fee" and related concepts of chace and outchace — the rights of driving game or pursuing hunting across lands. In this use, "enc." functions as a scribal shorthand in law French manuscripts rather than as a standalone legal term.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Abbreviation of "enclosure," indicating that a letter is accompanied by further material.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; "enclosure" in general usage referred to land enclosed by fencing or to something enclosed within a covering or envelope.
The gap between common and legal usage here is narrow but worth noting: in correspondence generally, "enc." signals attached material of any kind. In legal correspondence and court filings, the enclosures flagged by this abbreviation carry potential legal significance — they may constitute notice, form part of a record, or affect deadlines and obligations. An "enc." line on a legal letter is not merely administrative housekeeping.
Common Confusion
Researchers working in historical common law sources should not assume that every instance of "enc." refers to enclosures in the modern correspondence sense. In law French manuscript sources and early printed abridgments, the abbreviation may serve as a scribal compression of entirely different terms — including tenure-related and topographical concepts. Burrill's entry places "enc." in the context of demesne rights and chase, a usage that has no connection to the enclosure-of-documents meaning. Context of the source — its date, language register, and subject matter — is essential to correct interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
For researchers using the Law Mind corpus, this abbreviation presents a classic disambiguation problem. The same three letters appear in:
— Modern and near-modern legal correspondence files, where "enc." or "encl." signals attached documents and may be critical for establishing what was transmitted, when, and to whom.
— Early common law manuscripts and printed digests drawing on law French, where "enc." compresses terms related to tenure, land rights, and the rights of hunting — concepts with no relation to document transmission.
Burrill's entry is a reminder that historical legal abbreviations were not standardized across time or jurisdiction. A researcher reading a 17th- or 18th-century English law report who encounters "enc." in a margin or footnote should not assume the modern clerical meaning. Conversely, a researcher working with 20th-century litigation files can safely read "enc." as "enclosure" without consulting historical dictionaries.
The connection Burrill draws between "enc." and the phrases chace and outchace, and the concept of demesne as of fee, suggests the abbreviation may appear in manuscript contexts dealing with forest law, manorial rights, or real property pleadings. Those researchers should trace the entry to Britton (the 13th-century legal treatise Burrill cites as "Britt.") and cross-reference demesne and chase as substantive terms rather than treating "enc." as a self-contained entry.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the only shelf source to address this abbreviation, and his entry is terse even by the standards of abbreviation tables. He supplies the law French gloss "in his demesne as of fee" and the hunting-rights context (chace and outchace) with a citation to Britton chapters 51 and 72, then redirects the reader to Demesne. This structure suggests Burrill treated "enc." primarily as a cross-reference flag rather than a term requiring independent definition. No competing or supplementary treatment appears in the other historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus, which reflects both the abbreviation's minor status and the general tendency of 19th-century legal lexicographers to handle law French shorthand cursorily. Researchers seeking the substantive law behind Burrill's gloss must pursue Demesne, Chace, and the Britton citations directly.
Jurisdictional Note
The correspondence-enclosure use of "enc." is universal in English-language legal practice. The historical law French use is specific to the early English common law tradition and has no direct equivalent in civilian or Scottish legal sources.