Definition
Latin: "born and to be born." A term of art from property and inheritance law designating all heirs, both those already living at the relevant moment and those not yet born — encompassing the full line of potential successors, near and remote. The phrase operates as a comprehensive descriptor of heirship across generations, capturing present and future beneficiaries in a single expression.
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Common Language
This is pure legal Latin with no meaningful common-language counterpart. The individual words — *nati* (born) and *nascituri* (about to be born) — are accessible in translation, but the compound phrase as a legal term of art has no independent life outside property and inheritance contexts. COMMON LANGUAGE section is omitted accordingly.
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Why It Matters in Research
NATI ET NASCITURI is primarily a term of medieval and early modern property law, and researchers are most likely to encounter it in conveyancing documents, fee tail instruments, and treatises on real property rather than in reported cases. Its significance lies in scope: when a grant or limitation was expressed to run in favor of *nati et nascituri*, it signaled an intent to bind or benefit an entire line of succession — not merely those alive at the time of conveyancing.
The term is closely tied to the doctrine of fee tail, where the question of who counted as an heir, and how far the entail extended, was a matter of precise legal craft. Instruments using this phrase were attempting to foreclose any gap between current heirs and future-born descendants, ensuring continuity of the grant. Researchers working with historical conveyances, particularly English land records from the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries, should treat this phrase as a signal that the drafter intended the broadest possible succession.
The reference in Burrill to *Fleta* (lib. 3, c. 8) places the phrase firmly in the thirteenth-century English legal tradition. *Fleta* is a Latin legal treatise written circa 1290, drawing heavily on Bracton, and its use of *nati et nascituri* in the context of heirship confirms that the phrase was already established legal vocabulary in the late medieval period. Researchers using Burrill's citation should note that *Fleta* is a real and accessible treatise, though its chapter structure varies across editions; the lib. 3, c. 8 reference pertains to provisions concerning succession and seisin.
The secondary citation in Burrill — "See Comb. 154" — refers to *Comberbach's Reports*, a collection of English common law cases from the reign of William III (late seventeenth century). This pairing of a thirteenth-century treatise with a late seventeenth-century case report illustrates the phrase's durability across legal eras, but also cautions researchers: the precise doctrinal work being done by the phrase may differ between its medieval origins and its Restoration-era applications.
Neither edition of Black's adds analytical depth beyond the translation, which itself is the entry in full. Burrill is the more useful source for this term, precisely because it supplies the documentary hooks that connect the phrase to traceable legal authority.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on both the translation ("born and to be born") and the operative legal meaning (all heirs, near and remote). There is no divergence across the sources on substance. The difference lies in depth: both editions of Black's treat the entry as a simple gloss, while Burrill provides the jurisprudential anchoring through citation to *Fleta* and *Comberbach*. No source offers doctrinal analysis of how the phrase functioned in contested cases or how courts interpreted its scope when a grant's validity was disputed. Researchers should not expect these dictionaries to resolve questions about whether a specific instrument's use of the phrase successfully captured future-born heirs — that inquiry requires engagement with primary sources and the surrounding law of entail.
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Jurisdictional Note
This is a phrase of English legal origin rooted in medieval common law and is most relevant in jurisdictions that inherited English real property doctrine. American courts rarely invoke the phrase by name, as fee tail was largely abolished by statute in most U.S. states in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Researchers working with American sources are unlikely to encounter it outside of historical conveyancing instruments or academic commentary on property law history.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Fee Tail; Heirs and Heirship; Unborn Persons in Law.
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