Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "he held together" or "they held together." In old English practice, insimul tenuit designated a specific species of the writ of formedon — specifically, the writ of formedon in the descender — brought by a coparcener against a stranger, founded on the possession of the common ancestor. The action asserted a claim to land based on the ancestor having held the estate jointly with the claimant's line before alienation or dispossession.
The phrase functions both as a descriptive label for this variant of formedon and, historically, as a clause within the writ itself, identifying the basis of the claim: that the ancestor held the land in common with another.
Common Confusion
Insimul tenuit should not be confused with insimul computassent, a plea or count in the action of account (later assumpsit) based on mutual accounting. The two phrases share the prefix insimul but belong to entirely different areas of common law practice — real property actions versus personal contract-based actions. Historical legal databases and indexes that search by Latin prefix may surface both in the same results set.
Within the formedon family, insimul tenuit is the coparcenary variant. It differs from the standard formedon in the descender (which required no showing of joint holding by the ancestor) by its specific reliance on the ancestor's joint possession with another. Researchers should not assume all formedon in the descender writs carry the insimul tenuit designation.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a relic of the medieval real property action system, nearly inaccessible without understanding two now-abolished frameworks: the writ of formedon and the law of coparcenary. Researchers encountering insimul tenuit in primary sources should treat it as a navigational marker to a narrow, defunct procedural world.
Formedon itself was abolished in England by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833 and rendered obsolete by earlier statutes limiting actions on entails. By the time most American jurisdictions were codifying their civil procedure, formedon and its variants — including insimul tenuit — had no operative role. American primary sources referencing this term will almost exclusively be early colonial or pre-Revolutionary materials, or treatises summarizing English practice for comparative or historical purposes.
The research trap: insimul tenuit is sometimes confused with other formedon variants (in the descender, in the remainder, in the reverter) because historical sources do not always clearly separate the subcategories. Burrill's citation to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (F. N. B. 216) is the most precise pointer to primary authority; researchers tracing the writ's technical requirements should go there first. Black's and Rapalje add little beyond Burrill's skeletal treatment.
Corpus researchers should also note that "insimul" appears in other Latin legal phrases — most notably insimul computassent (they accounted together), an action in assumpsit — and careless indexing in historical corpora may group these distinct terms together. Context is decisive.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries agree on the core identification: insimul tenuit is a species of formedon in the descender, brought by a coparcener against a stranger on the ancestor's possession. There is no substantive disagreement among them.
The differences are ones of depth, not doctrine. Burrill, the most technically precise of the three, identifies the writ as belonging specifically to formedon in the descender and grounds the entry in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium — the standard medieval treatise on original writs. Black's and Rapalje largely replicate the same one-line description, with Black's crediting Jacob's Law Dictionary rather than Fitzherbert directly.
None of the source dictionaries address the writ's abolition, its American reception (or non-reception), or the surrounding law of coparcenary in any depth. For substantive treatment of those subjects, researchers must look beyond these dictionary entries to historical real property treatises. Coke on Littleton and the later editions of Blackstone's Commentaries (Book II, chapters on real actions and tenures) provide the framework within which insimul tenuit operated.
Jurisdictional Note
Insimul tenuit was purely an English common law form and had no meaningful independent development in American jurisdictions. Where real actions were received at all in early American practice, they were quickly curtailed or abolished by statute. The term's appearance in American legal materials is almost always historical, descriptive, or comparative rather than operative.