Definition
Turfs or clods of earth dug out of the ground. The term appears in medieval property and land law contexts, typically in relation to the physical act of transferring possession of land. In early conveyancing practice, a piece of turf or soil taken from the land — sometimes called a "glebe" or portion thereof — could serve as a symbolic object delivered to a grantee as part of a ceremony of livery of seisin, representing the transfer of the freehold estate itself.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a relic of pre-modern conveyancing ritual and will not appear in modern case law or statutes. Researchers encountering it should understand it in the context of livery of seisin — the common law ceremony by which title to freehold land was transferred not by written deed alone but by a symbolic physical act, often involving the delivery of a twig, a clod of earth, or a handful of turf on the land itself. Glebariz refers specifically to the material so dug up and handed over.
The term surfaces in historical records — medieval charters, manorial court rolls, and early conveyancing instruments — where the precise ceremonial acts of transfer were recited in detail. A researcher working through English land records predating the Statute of Frauds (1677) or early American colonial land grants may encounter this or cognate terms. Its presence in a document is a signal that the record is describing a formal livery of seisin ceremony, which has significant implications for establishing the chain of title in historical property disputes.
Because Black's 2nd edition cites only Cowell (John Cowell's Interpreter, 1607), the term's legal use is traceable to a single early modern lexicographic source. Researchers should treat this as a term of art with a narrow documentary footprint rather than a term with broad jurisprudential development.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) gives the definition simply as "Turfs dug out of the ground," citing Cowell. John Cowell's Interpreter (1607) is itself a glossary of legal and antiquarian terms compiled from medieval sources, meaning the lineage of this term runs from medieval Latin and Anglo-Norman land law through early modern legal lexicography and into nineteenth-century dictionary compilation. No substantive doctrinal development appears in any known source — Black's entry, brief as it is, likely represents the full extent of the term's formal legal treatment in anglophone legal literature.
The absence of this term from later editions of Black's and from other major legal dictionaries (Bouvier, Burrill, Tomlin) suggests it was recognized even in the nineteenth century as purely antiquarian. Researchers should not expect to find it defined differently elsewhere; what Black's records is essentially what Cowell recorded three centuries prior.
Jurisdictional Note
The term belongs to English common law property history and has no recognized use in any modern jurisdiction. It may appear in historical English, Welsh, or early American colonial land records where livery of seisin ceremonies were formally documented.