Definition
In old law French (Law French), *enheriter* means "to inherit." The term appears in maxims and legal rules governing the descent of property, expressing the principle that the right of inheritance follows a consistent bloodline logic: the person entitled to inherit from a father is equally entitled to inherit from the father's son. The term has no independent procedural or statutory life in modern law; it survives only in historical maxims and their commentary.
Common Confusion
ENHERITER should not be confused with modern terms of art such as *heir*, *inherit*, or *descent and distribution*. The Law French form obscures the simplicity of the underlying concept. Researchers encountering *enheriter* in historical sources are looking at the verb form of inheritance used in Norman-inflected legal writing, not a distinct doctrine separate from the law of descent.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in early English common law materials written in Law French, the legal language of the English courts from the Norman Conquest through roughly the seventeenth century. Researchers working with Year Books, early abridgments, or treatises such as Bracton, Littleton, or Coke will encounter Law French vocabulary routinely, and failure to recognize *enheriter* as a verb of inheritance can cause misreading of descent rules.
The maxim preserved in Burrill — *Cestuy que doit enheriter al pere doit enheriter al fitz* — is a rule of descent expressing the consanguinity principle: inheritance follows blood, and the line does not restart at each generation. Understanding this maxim matters when tracing how common law courts reasoned about collateral heirs, the half-blood, and the exclusion of certain relatives in early property disputes.
Researchers should be alert to variant spellings. Law French was never fully standardized, and forms such as *enheritier*, *inheriter*, or related constructions may appear in manuscript or early printed sources. Cross-reference to the *cestui* entry and to materials on the canons of descent will usually resolve context.
This term has no meaningful presence in American legal materials except in historical scholarship or in courts interpreting ancient grants or colonial-era property instruments where English common law rules of descent govern.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is brief but accurate. It supplies the maxim, translates the term, and points the reader to *cestui* for further context — which is the appropriate move, since the maxim's operative subject is the *cestui que* (the person whose entitlement is at issue), not the verb *enheriter* itself. Burrill does not attempt to expand the entry beyond its narrow historical function, and no expansion is warranted.
Older English law dictionaries, including Termes de la Ley and Cowell's Interpreter, address the vocabulary of descent and inheritance in Law French broadly, but *enheriter* as a standalone entry is rarely treated at length in any of the major historical dictionaries. Its content is absorbed into discussions of *heir*, *inheritance*, and *descent*. The absence of substantial treatment across the dictionary shelf reflects the term's role as functional vocabulary rather than a technical term of art with disputed or evolving content.
No significant divergence exists among historical sources on meaning. The term is stable and uncontroversial; its obscurity is a function of language rather than legal complexity.
Jurisdictional Note
Irrelevant to modern jurisdictional analysis. The term belongs to English common law as received before American independence. Where American courts apply common law rules of descent to interpret historical instruments, the underlying principles survive, but the Law French vocabulary does not.