Definition
Latin: "to hold place." A Latin phrase used in medieval English statutes and legal texts with two closely related meanings:
1. To be applicable or to apply — used to describe whether a statute, rule, or legal provision governs a particular subject matter or class of transaction. A provision was said to locum tenere with respect to a given matter if it covered or operated upon that matter.
2. To take effect or come into operation as to time — used to describe the moment at which a statute or legal instrument began to operate, particularly with reference to a specified date or feast day.
The phrase locum habere ("to have place") carried the same meaning and appears interchangeably in sources of the same period.
Common Confusion
Do not confuse the statutory phrase locum tenere with locum tenens, the noun form that developed into a term of art meaning a substitute or deputy — a person who holds another's place. In modern professional contexts, especially medicine and (in some jurisdictions) law, a "locum" is a temporary replacement practitioner. That usage descends from the same Latin words but describes a person, not a rule. In medieval statutory Latin, locum tenere describes a provision's scope or operative effect, not any person's role. Reading the phrase as referring to a substitute official in a Quia Emptores context is an error.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in the Latin text of medieval English statutes and in treatises and legal commentaries that quote or gloss those statutes. Researchers will encounter it most often when working with:
— Pre-1300 English legislation, particularly Quia Emptores (1290) and surrounding land law statutes, where the phrase is used to mark which transactions fell within statutory scope.
— Fleta and comparable treatises of the late thirteenth century, which use locum habere and locum tenere interchangeably when discussing the application and commencement of statutory rules.
The primary research trap is treating locum tenere as a term of office or agency — meaning "one who holds the place of another," which is the modern derivative sense found in the English word "locum" and in locum tenens. In its statutory context, the phrase does not refer to a person acting as a substitute. It describes a rule or provision holding its place, i.e., operating within a defined scope or from a defined time. Conflating these senses will produce a fundamental misreading of the statutory text.
Because the phrase describes statutory applicability and commencement, it functions as interpretive language rather than substantive law. When a medieval draftsman used locum tenere to delimit a statute's reach, modern researchers should treat it as the functional equivalent of phrases like "this act shall apply to" or "this act shall take effect on" in modern legislative drafting. Recognizing that equivalence is essential for accurate translation and for understanding the interpretive arguments courts and commentators built around these statutes.
Researchers working in Law Mind sources on medieval land law, the development of the fee simple, or the history of subinfeudation and substitution will encounter this phrase in its Quia Emptores context and should connect it to the substantive land law questions those statutes address.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source in the Law Mind corpus for this phrase and provides the essential gloss. Burrill draws directly on the Latin text of Quia Emptores, chapter 3, quoting the provision concerning lands sold, and separately notes the temporal sense drawn from Fleta, book 4, chapter 1, section 16, where the phrase marks the commencement of a rule at the feast of Saint Andrew.
Burrill's treatment is compact but accurate. He correctly identifies both the applicability sense and the temporal sense and correctly equates locum tenere with locum habere. What the entry does not do — and what researchers should supply — is distinguish this statutory usage from the personal-substitute sense that the same Latin words carry in other legal and non-legal contexts. That distinction is not Burrill's concern because his entry is keyed to the specific statutory appearances, but a researcher moving between sources needs to hold it consciously.
No other historical dictionary in the Law Mind corpus indexes this phrase as a standalone entry. It does not appear in Black's early editions as an independent term, reflecting the phrase's confinement to a narrow stratum of medieval Latin statutory sources.
Jurisdictional Note
This phrase is specific to medieval English statutory and legal commentary sources. It has no direct application in American common law statutes or modern legal drafting. Researchers will encounter it only when working with English sources predating the transition to English-language legislation.