Definition
PASTURE has two recognized legal meanings, which often appear together in property and common-law contexts:
1. The land itself. A field or tract of ground covered with grass or herbage, used for the grazing and feeding of cattle or other livestock. In this sense, pasture is a category of rural real property defined by its use rather than its physical characteristics.
2. The right of pasture. A species of profit à prendre — an incorporeal hereditament entitling the holder to feed a specified number of animals on another person's land. In this sense, pasture is not land at all, but a right appurtenant to or in gross over land. The two meanings are closely connected: disputes about the right of pasture almost always involve a specific parcel of pasture land.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Land, specifically an open field, on which livestock is kept for feeding; ground covered with grass or herbage suitable for grazing; also, food or nourishment.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Grass growing for the food of cattle; grass land set aside for livestock grazing; in older usage, food or nourishment generally.
The common meaning and the primary legal meaning are closely aligned when pasture refers to land. The significant legal addition is the second meaning: pasture as an incorporeal right — a profit à prendre — which has no counterpart in ordinary usage. A researcher encountering "pasture" in a deed, conveyance, or pleading must determine whether the document is transferring land or granting a right over another's land. The common-language reading will not flag this distinction.
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Common Confusion
PASTURE (the right) vs. COMMON OF PASTURE. The right of pasture may exist as a private, individual profit à prendre or as a common right shared among defined parties. Common of pasture is a subset — the right held in common with others, typically appurtenant to a particular tenement. Not every right of pasture is a common of pasture, and the procedural and remedial rules historically differed between them. Historical sources sometimes use the terms interchangeably, which can obscure this distinction.
PASTURE vs. EASEMENT. A right of pasture is a profit à prendre, not a mere easement. The distinction matters: a profit allows the holder to take something (grass, through the mouths of animals) from the land; an easement only permits use without taking. Some older sources treat these loosely.
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Why It Matters in Research
Dual-meaning trap. Because "pasture" in historical deeds and instruments can mean either the land or the right, researchers must read surrounding language carefully. A grant of "all my pastures" transfers real property. A grant of "pasture for twenty cattle" typically grants a right over land. The difference is foundational to understanding what was conveyed and what remedies attach.
The writ of surcharge. Black's first edition includes a separate procedural entry for pasture as a now-obsolete judicial writ — lying against a party impleaded in a county court for surcharging a common with cattle, where the matter had previously been raised in the same court before removal to a superior court. This writ is distinct from the substantive property concepts and appears in historical pleading records. Researchers in early English procedural materials should note it as a term of art separate from the land-and-right definitions.
Surcharge doctrine. The writ entry points to the broader doctrine of surcharging a common — putting more animals onto common pasture than one's right permits. Surcharge remains a recognized cause of action in jurisdictions that still recognize common rights and appears in historical agrarian litigation. Understanding pasture as a right is a prerequisite to understanding surcharge.
Historical property research. In title searches, estate records, and enclosure proceedings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, pasture rights were frequently the subject of dispute, commutation, or extinguishment. Researchers working in those periods should expect to find pasture rights as line items in schedules of enclosure awards and compensation records.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both the first and second editions of Black's Law Dictionary carry nearly identical definitions, indicating no meaningful editorial evolution between editions on this term: "Land on which cattle are fed; also the right of pasture," citing Coke on Littleton 4b. The citation to Co. Litt. 4b is a foundational common-law authority and places pasture firmly within the classical framework of real property and profits à prendre.
What the historical dictionaries do not develop: they give no treatment of the different forms the right of pasture can take (appendant, appurtenant, in gross, by vicinage), which are addressed in the common-law treatise literature. They also do not explain the writ entry in relation to the property definitions — the two entries appear separately without cross-reference, which can mislead a researcher into thinking they are unrelated concepts. The writ is a procedural remedy arising directly from the substantive right.
The Webster's 1913 definition confirms that the land-based meaning was well established in general usage, but the legal meaning of pasture as a profit is entirely absent from lay sources, as expected for an incorporeal hereditament.
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Jurisdictional Note
In the United States, formal rights of pasture as profits à prendre are uncommon but not extinct, and survive in some rural jurisdictions through deed language or longstanding custom. In England and Wales, pasture rights attached to common land were subject to statutory commutation and registration under the Commons Registration Act 1965 and successor legislation; unregistered rights may have been extinguished. Researchers working in English land records should treat registration status as a threshold question.
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