Definition
Hamesucken is a Scottish criminal law term for the offense of deliberately seeking out a person in their own dwelling and attacking them there. The crime combines two elements: the intentional entry into another's home and the commission of personal violence upon the occupant. The dwelling provides the setting, but the assault is the heart of the offense — the aggravated nature of the crime lies in the deliberate invasion of a person's place of refuge for the purpose of doing them bodily harm.
The term is archaic and belongs almost exclusively to Scottish legal history. It does not appear in modern statutory criminal codes and is encountered today almost entirely in historical legal sources, comparative criminal law scholarship, and antiquarian legal research.
Common Confusion
Hamesucken is sometimes loosely equated with burglary, but the two offenses are conceptually distinct. Burglary (in its classical common law form) targets the dwelling itself — the breaking and entering, often with intent to commit a felony inside. Hamesucken targets the person: the entry is the means, the assault is the offense. Bouvier's is explicit on this point: mere breaking into a house without personal violence does not constitute hamesucken, nor does violence alone without entry with intent. A researcher conflating the two will misread both the Scottish sources and any comparative analysis drawing on English common law.
Core Elements
Because hamesucken has a precise historical formulation, its elements are worth stating clearly:
1. Entry into a dwelling — the offender must come to the victim's home. Chance encounters on the premises do not qualify; the entry must be purposive.
2. Intent to assault — the entry must be made with the specific purpose of committing personal violence. Entry for other purposes, even if violence follows, may not satisfy the offense.
3. Personal violence — actual assault must occur. Breaking in without attacking the occupant is insufficient.
All three elements must concur. The offense is defined by their combination, not by any single element standing alone.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter hamesucken almost exclusively in two contexts: Scottish criminal law sources from roughly the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, and English legal commentaries that reference Scottish law comparatively — Blackstone's Commentaries (4 Bl. Com. 223) being the most prominent example. Blackstone's passing reference is the primary conduit through which English-language legal readers encountered the term, and it is worth noting that his treatment is brief and descriptive rather than analytical.
The spelling varies across sources. Bouvier notes the alternate form hamesecken, and researchers working through manuscript or early print sources should expect inconsistency. Searching only one spelling in historical databases will produce incomplete results.
Because the offense has no direct modern statutory descendant, it is not useful as precedent in live litigation. Its research value is historical and comparative: understanding how pre-modern legal systems conceptualized the aggravated nature of home invasion as distinct from simple assault, and tracing how that conceptualization did or did not influence later Anglo-American doctrines around home defense, curtilage, and aggravated assault.
Scottish institutional writers are the primary sources for doctrinal analysis. Hume's Commentaries on the Law of Scotland Respecting Crimes (cited by Bouvier as 1 Hume 312), Burnett's Criminal Law, and Alison's Principles of the Criminal Law of Scotland are the authoritative shelf sources. Researchers without access to these works will find Bouvier's treatment is a useful secondary summary but not a substitute for the institutional writers themselves.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's definition is precise and grounded in the Scottish institutional sources, citing Hume, Burnett, and Alison directly. This is one of the stronger Bouvier entries for a Scottish-law term, in that it does not merely define the word but identifies the elements and flags the spelling variation. The caveat that breaking in without violence is insufficient, and violence without entry with intent is likewise insufficient, reflects careful reading of the institutional writers rather than loose paraphrase.
Wiktionary's definition — "an assault on a person in his own home, having broken in for that purpose" — is serviceable for a quick gloss and accurately captures the deliberate-entry requirement. It is, however, compressed to the point of losing the nuance around violence as a necessary element separate from entry.
No English-language historical legal dictionary gives this term more than passing treatment, which reflects its status as a term of Scots law adopted into broader legal vocabulary only through comparative reference. The Blackstone citation in Bouvier is a useful flag: it signals that the term achieved enough cross-border recognition to appear in the most widely read English criminal law commentary of the eighteenth century, even if it never took root in English doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
Hamesucken is a term of Scots law with no equivalent offense in the English common law tradition or in American law. Researchers encountering it in English or American sources are almost certainly reading comparative or historical material, not operative doctrine. Modern Scottish criminal law does not retain hamesucken as a named offense; its elements are absorbed into contemporary assault and aggravated burglary frameworks.