Definition
An obsolete Latin term of medieval English law meaning a chase — that is, a tract of land set apart for the keeping and hunting of wild animals. Functionally equivalent to chacea (chase), fugacia referred to the territorial hunting ground itself, though related forms of the word extended to the rights and acts of hunting conducted within it.
The term appears in historical records in several closely related forms:
1. FUGACIA — the chase itself; the land designated for hunting.
2. FUGACIO / FUGATIO — the act or liberty of hunting wild animals in forests, chases, and parks. Burrill records the phrase from the Charter of Liberties of Henry I granting London citizens their hunting rights: Et cives habeant fugaciones suas ad fugandum (and the citizens shall have their chases for hunting).
3. FUGATIO FORESTA — specifically, the drift of the forest; the driving or herding of animals within forest bounds, typically associated with periodic forest courts and the management of common rights.
Common Confusion
FUGACIA should not be confused with FUGAM FECIT ("he fled"), a distinct Latin legal phrase that appears in the same historical sources. Fugam fecit was a finding in an inquisition indicating that a person had fled from a charge of treason or felony, resulting in forfeiture of goods and sequestration of land profits. The two terms share a Latin root related to flight and pursuit but operate in entirely different legal domains — fugacia in property and forest law, fugam fecit in criminal forfeiture procedure. Because Bouvier's entry for FUGACIA immediately precedes its entry for FUGAM FECIT, researchers working with older printed dictionaries or their digital transcriptions should be careful not to run the two entries together.
Why It Matters in Research
FUGACIA is narrow, archaic, and essentially extinct as an operative legal term — no modern jurisdiction uses it as a term of art. Its research value is almost entirely historical, arising in three contexts:
First, in studies of English forest law and the evolution of common hunting rights. The chase (chacea or fugacia) was a distinct legal institution lying between the royal forest and the open field. Researchers tracing the development of property rights in game, common of pasture, or manorial entitlements will encounter this term in medieval charters and forest court rolls.
Second, in charter interpretation. The Burrill citation to the Charter of Liberties of Henry I (c. 1100) places fugacio in a constitutional-adjacent document granting civic hunting rights to London citizens. Researchers working on early English charter liberties or borough privileges may find the term embedded in primary sources without explanation.
Third, as a cross-reference trap. Because Burrill's entry conflates FUGACIA and FUGACIO/FUGATIO in a single block, and because Bouvier runs FUGACIA directly into FUGAM FECIT, researchers skimming historical dictionaries may misread the scope of either term. The hunting-rights meaning and the flight-and-forfeiture meaning must be kept strictly separate.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are consistent on the core meaning — a chase — but vary significantly in depth. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence offer only the bare gloss "a chase" with a single attribution to Blount (Thomas Blount, Nomo-Lexikon: A Law Dictionary, 1670). Bouvier adds Cowel (John Cowell, The Interpreter, 1607) as a second authority and then pivots immediately to FUGAM FECIT without elaborating on FUGACIA itself.
Burrill's is the outlier in a useful way: it distinguishes FUGACIA from FUGACIO/FUGATIO, provides the Henry I charter quotation, cites Spelman (Sir Henry Spelman, Glossarium Archaiologicum) alongside Blount, and notes the specialized sub-form FUGATIO FORESTA. Burrill's entry is the most informative starting point for any researcher needing substantive content on this term. The other dictionaries function only as confirmation that the term was recognized, not as independent sources of meaning.
No historical dictionary attempts a systematic account of fugacia in relation to the larger structure of English forest law — the connection to the royal forest, the chase, the park, and the warren must be developed from forest law treatises and primary sources outside the dictionary tradition.
Jurisdictional Note
Fugacia is a term of medieval English law only. It has no counterpart in American law, civil law systems, or modern English law. Researchers encountering it will be working exclusively with pre-modern English sources, primarily from the Norman through early modern periods.