Definition
An archaic Latin term appearing in old English records, denoting a hack, pick, or digging instrument — a hand tool used to break or work the ground. The term is a Latinized form found in medieval pleading records and has no surviving technical legal meaning in modern law. Its significance is purely historical and documentary, appearing in the context of records that inventoried chattels, described property, or detailed the circumstances of disputes involving agricultural or mining implements.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering hachia in manuscript plea rolls or early printed record collections should treat it as a descriptive term for a specific type of hand tool, not as a term of legal art carrying independent legal consequences. Its appearance in a document most likely reflects inventory language, a description of chattels at issue in a dispute, or an account of implements associated with land use or labor. The term surfaces in records from the reign of Edward III (14th century), a period when Latin pleading in English courts was standard and when Latinized vernacular terms for tools and objects were common in plea rolls.
The primary research trap is misreading hachia as a term with procedural or doctrinal significance when it is simply a thing — a physical object being described. Context is decisive: the surrounding pleading language will clarify whether the tool is the subject of a theft allegation, a trespass claim, a debt dispute over goods, or a forfeiture record.
Researchers working in early Year Books, plea rolls, or manuscript records from the Edwardian period should be alert to similar Latinized tool terminology. Cowell's Interpreter, cited by Burrill as a secondary authority for this entry, is a useful companion for resolving other obscure Latinized common terms in records of this era, though Cowell has known limitations as a source and should be cross-checked where possible.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical legal dictionary entry for this term, drawing on two sources: a manuscript plea roll from the second year of Edward III's reign (Placita, 2 Edw. III. MS.) and Cowell's Interpreter. The entry is brief: "A hack; a pick, or instrument for digging." No further doctrinal content is offered, which accurately reflects the term's function — it is a record-descriptive word, not a legal concept.
No other major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — not Bouvier, not Black's early editions — carry an entry for hachia, which confirms its status as a highly specialized term of medieval record Latin with no life beyond its narrow documentary context. The absence of the term from later dictionaries is itself informative: by the time legal lexicography became systematic in the 19th century, hachia had long since disappeared from active use.
Burrill's inclusion of the term reflects his characteristic attention to archaic and record Latin, making his dictionary the appropriate first stop for any researcher encountering unfamiliar Latinized terminology in early English plea rolls.