Definition
Latin: "This is the agreement." A formal introductory phrase used in medieval English legal instruments to signal the commencement of a binding agreement or covenant between parties. The phrase functioned as the operative opening declaration of a contract or indenture, performing in Latin what modern agreements accomplish with language such as "This Agreement is entered into by and between…" or "Know all men by these presents." It carried no substantive legal meaning beyond its role as a formal marker — the legal weight resided in the terms that followed.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in medieval plea rolls, Year Books, or early common law records should treat it as a chronological and documentary marker rather than a term of substantive law. Its presence signals that the instrument predates the shift away from Latin as the standard language of English legal drafting — a transition largely completed by the mid-eighteenth century, though Latin opening formulae persisted in some forms well beyond their practical necessity.
The critical research trap here is looking for doctrine where there is only form. Hec est conventio does not define what constitutes a valid agreement, does not import any particular legal standard, and does not correspond to any element of contract enforceability. It is a drafting convention, not a legal test. Researchers investigating the substantive law of medieval English contracts should look past the phrase to the operative covenants and conditions that follow it in the instrument.
For corpus researchers, this phrase most commonly appears in Year Book materials and in discussions of archaic pleading or instrument drafting. It is unlikely to appear in any analytical or doctrinal sense in later treatise literature — its appearance in dictionaries like Black's reflects completeness of historical coverage rather than any ongoing doctrinal relevance. If the phrase appears in a secondary source, it is almost certainly being used illustratively, to demonstrate the antiquity of contractual formalism or the Latin character of early common law records.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) provides the sole dictionary entry of note, defining the phrase concisely as "[w]ords with which agreements anciently commenced" and citing the Year Books of Edward II (Yearb. H. 6 Edw. II. 191). The entry is accurate as far as it goes. No additional historical dictionary treatment is available from the present source corpus.
What historical dictionaries collectively reflect, and what Black's captures in miniature, is that Latin formulaic openings were a standardized feature of medieval English legal drafting across a wide range of instrument types — deeds, covenants, indentures, and agreements. The precise phrase varied: hec est conventio, hec indentura, and similar constructions were interchangeable structural markers. No historical source assigns legal significance to the choice among them. The phrase is notable primarily as evidence of how deeply Latin formalism was embedded in early English legal practice and how long such forms persisted even after their informational content had become redundant.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase is specific to the English common law tradition and its medieval documentation practices. It has no independent standing in American, Scottish, or civil law jurisdictions.