Definition
In old English law, a gutter or drain. The term appears in Latin legal records and writs of the medieval and early modern English common law period, designating a channel, conduit, or passage constructed to carry away water, waste, or runoff from buildings or land. It corresponds functionally to what modern property and nuisance law would address under easements of drainage, riparian rights, or the law of watercourses.
Why It Matters in Research
Guttura is a term of medieval Latin legal usage confined almost entirely to the formulaic language of original writs and pleading records. Researchers encountering it will do so primarily in transcriptions of or citations to the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.), the standard printed collection of original writ forms used in the English courts of common law. Its appearance in a source signals a dispute over drainage or water discharge from one tenement across or through another — matters that in modern research fall under easements, prescription, or nuisance doctrine.
The practical research trap is anachronism in both directions. Modern drainage disputes are governed by statute and equitable easement doctrine, and no direct doctrinal line runs from guttura writs to contemporary practice without tracing the intervening development through common law nuisance and later drainage legislation. Conversely, researchers working backward from modern easement doctrine should not assume that the medieval writ vocabulary maps cleanly onto modern categories: a guttura dispute was a distinct writ action, not simply an early nuisance claim.
Because guttura appears almost exclusively in Latin formularies rather than in discursive legal treatises, secondary dictionary coverage is thin. Researchers needing full context should consult the original writ registers and Year Book materials directly, as the term functions as a technical label for a writ form rather than as a developed substantive doctrine with its own case law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical dictionary treatment identified for this term, offering a concise gloss — "a gutter, or drain" — with a direct citation to Registrum Omnium Brevium, folio 104b. The entry is characteristic of Burrill's handling of Latin law terms drawn from writ practice: accurate and economical, but without doctrinal elaboration or cross-reference to related actions.
No divergence among historical sources can be assessed here because coverage is limited to a single dictionary entry. The reference to the Reg. Orig. is the substantive anchor. Researchers should note that Burrill's Latin law terms derived from writ registers frequently lack commentary precisely because those terms were procedural labels rather than contested legal concepts — their meaning was fixed by the register itself.
Jurisdictional Note
Guttura is a term of English common law exclusively and has no recognized equivalent in American, Scottish, or civilian legal systems. American law addressed drainage disputes through easement doctrine, riparian law, and eventually statutory schemes, with no reception of the writ-register vocabulary.