Definition
An old Latin term appearing in medieval English records, referring to a formal survey, valuation, or register of lands. The word carried a range of related meanings — an extent or appraisal of a property's value, and more specifically, a written survey or register documenting the lands, tenements, and resources of a manor or estate. The term is most often encountered in conjunction with the phrase *extenta manerii* (survey of a manor), which designated a formal written account of a lord's manorial holdings.
Common Confusion
EXTENTA should not be confused with the broader legal process known as an EXTENT (the writ by which a creditor could have a debtor's lands appraised and delivered in satisfaction of a debt). The two share the same Latin root and overlap in meaning around the concept of valuation, but an extenta in record usage typically denotes a descriptive land survey or register, not a creditor's remedy. Researchers who encounter either term in historical sources should determine from context whether the document at hand concerns an administrative survey of property or a creditor's enforcement action.
Why It Matters in Research
Extenta is a term researchers will encounter almost exclusively in medieval English records — particularly in monastic cartularies, manorial rolls, and administrative documents of the twelfth through fifteenth centuries. Several navigational points apply:
First, the term signals documentary context. When extenta appears in a source, the researcher is likely looking at evidence of a formal administrative survey rather than litigation. These surveys were tools of estate management and fiscal assessment, and they often recorded not only land acreage but services owed, tenants' names, rents, and the physical condition of buildings and resources. Their evidential value for property history and feudal tenure research is considerable.
Second, spelling and form vary across manuscripts and printed transcriptions. Variant spellings and Latinized contractions are common in medieval records. A researcher using digitized or transcribed sources should search flexibly and cross-check against the original where possible.
Third, the term connects directly to *extenta manerii*, the phrase used for the formal manor survey genre. These surveys survive in sufficient number that they constitute a recognized category of medieval administrative record. Researchers tracing title, manorial customs, or the extent of specific estates will want to treat extenta as an entry point into that documentary tradition.
Fourth, the term has no meaningful post-medieval legal life. It does not appear in modern statutory or common law contexts, and its only current relevance is as a term of art in legal history and archival research.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives extenta a compact but accurate treatment, defining it as "an extent; an estimate or valuation; or, more properly, a survey or register of lands," with reference to Monasticon Anglicanum (1 Mon. Angl. 548) and to Cowell's legal dictionary. Burrill's gloss tracks the range of meanings the term carried in medieval usage without overclaiming precision where the sources themselves vary. The reference to Cowell is useful; John Cowell's *Interpreter* (1607) was among the earliest attempts to systematize medieval legal Latin for English practitioners and remains a standard authority on terms of this vintage.
What historical dictionaries understandably do not provide is guidance on locating actual extenta documents or situating them within the broader typology of medieval English administrative records. For that work, researchers should look beyond dictionary sources to scholarly treatments of manorial documentation and to published calendars and finding aids for relevant archival collections.
Jurisdictional Note
Extenta is a term native to medieval English land law and record-keeping. It does not have a recognized counterpart in Scots law, civil law systems, or American legal history. Researchers working in non-English jurisdictions who encounter the term are almost certainly dealing with a document of English origin or with a source that draws on English legal Latin conventions.