Definition
In old English law, the hasp of a door — that is, the hinged metal clasp used to fasten a door shut. HASPA functioned as a symbolic object through which livery of seisin could be delivered when the premises included a house or other structure. By physically handing the hasp (or an equivalent fixture such as a ring or handle) to the transferee at the door, a grantor could complete the formal transfer of possession required to convey a freehold interest in land.
Bouvier also records a secondary usage: the hasp or clasp of a book, though this sense appears rarely in legal sources and carries no independent legal significance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A hasp is a fastening device consisting of a hinged metal strap that fits over a staple and is secured by a pin or padlock. Familiar in everyday hardware contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A clasp, especially a metal strap hinged at one end, used to fasten a door, lid, or book by passing over a staple and being secured with a pin or lock.
The common and legal meanings share the same physical object. The significance of HASPA in legal sources is entirely contextual: what was an ordinary piece of door hardware became, in the ceremony of livery of seisin, a legally operative symbol of an entire estate in land. Researchers who encounter the term in a modern hardware context will find nothing there to prepare them for its role in medieval conveyancing.
Common Confusion
HASPA is sometimes encountered near HASTA in the same dictionary entries, particularly in Bouvier. These are unrelated terms. HASTA (Latin for "spear") was a Roman law symbol of auction sale — to place goods sub hasta meant to put them up for public sale. The proximity in alphabetical arrangement has caused the two terms to bleed together in some reference works. They share no legal function.
Why It Matters in Research
HASPA is a narrow term of art confined almost entirely to the historical law of real property conveyancing. Researchers will encounter it only when working with pre-modern English land transfers, Year Books, or treatises such as Bracton — the source explicitly cited in Burrill's entry. Because livery of seisin as a method of conveyancing was effectively superseded by the Statute of Uses (1536) and later by the Statute of Frauds (1677), HASPA has no operative role in modern property law anywhere in the common law world.
The key research trap is anachronism: applying modern deed-based assumptions to sources that predate written conveyancing. In the era when HASPA mattered, physical delivery of possession — often performed at the threshold of a dwelling — was the act that legally transferred land. The hasp was not a metaphor; it was the operative object delivered in the transferee's hands. Understanding this ceremony is essential for reading Bracton, Littleton, and Coke correctly.
Burrill's entry provides the most complete Latin citation: the Bracton formula "per ostium, et per haspam, vel annulum" (by the door, and by the hasp or ring) illustrates that HASPA was one of several interchangeable threshold objects. Researchers tracing the mechanics of livery of seisin should note that the hasp, the ring, and the door itself each served the same symbolic function, and that sources may use these terms interchangeably.
No American case law treats HASPA as operative. Any appearance in American legal writing is antiquarian, appearing in treatises tracing the roots of real property doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: HASPA denotes the hasp of a door as used in livery of seisin. Burrill provides the richest entry, supplying the Bracton citation and the Latin formula that contextualizes the term within the actual ceremony. Black's (both editions) and Black's 2nd Ed. give identical minimal definitions, useful for quick identification but offering no doctrinal depth. Bouvier adds the secondary meaning (book clasp) and transitions directly to the separate entry for HASTA — a layout that has contributed to reader confusion noted above.
None of the historical dictionaries situate HASPA within the broader ceremony of livery of seisin in detail, nor do they cross-reference the Statute of Uses that rendered the ceremony obsolete. Researchers relying on dictionary entries alone will understand what the word means but may not grasp when it ceased to matter.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Livery of Seisin; Conveyancing (Historical)