Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning purchase — specifically, the acquisition of property by one's own act or agreement, as distinguished from descent or inheritance. The term is a direct Law French form of the English "purchase" and carries the same legal meaning as that term in its classical common law sense: the acquisition of an estate in land by any means other than operation of law through inheritance.
Common Confusion
POURCHASE and PURCHASE are not different concepts — they are the same concept in two languages. Pourchase is the Law French form; purchase is the anglicized derivative. Researchers encountering pourchase in a medieval or early modern legal text should treat it as identical in meaning to purchase as used in the same period. Neither term, in its classical legal sense, is limited to a commercial transaction involving payment of money — a confusion that arises frequently when modern readers apply the ordinary commercial meaning of "purchase" to historical legal sources.
Why It Matters in Research
The term pourchase appears almost exclusively in Law French legal sources, Year Books, and early common law commentaries. It will not appear in modern legal instruments or contemporary case law. Researchers working in Law Mind's historical corpus — particularly manuscripts and printed treatises predating the eighteenth century — may encounter pourchase where a later source would use purchase, and a modern source would use acquisition or conveyance.
The critical research trap is anachronism. In modern usage, purchase is strongly associated with a commercial transaction: a buyer pays consideration and receives title. In classical common law usage — whether expressed as pourchase or purchase — the term was far broader, encompassing gifts, grants, and any other volitional transfer. A pourchase was simply the opposite of descent. Misreading a classical source by importing the modern commercial meaning will distort the legal relationship being described.
When tracing title chains or land tenure arguments in historical sources, the pourchase/descent distinction was foundational. An estate acquired by pourchase was held in fee simple purchaser's line; an estate acquired by descent followed the bloodline of the original ancestor. This distinction had consequences for the canons of descent, warranty obligations, and actions to recover land. Understanding pourchase as a technical term in that system, not merely a spelling variant, is essential for accurate interpretation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives the entry tersely: "L. Fr. A purchase. Cowell. See Purchase." This is accurate so far as it goes. Burrill appropriately cross-references Cowell's Interpreter, one of the standard early glossaries of Law French and Law Latin terms used in the English common law tradition, and redirects the reader to the substantive treatment under Purchase.
The brevity of the Burrill entry reflects the nature of the term — it is a linguistic variant, not an independent legal doctrine. Historical dictionaries uniformly treat pourchase as derivative of and equivalent to purchase in its technical sense. No historical source assigns pourchase a meaning distinct from purchase. The practical value of the historical dictionary treatment is confirmatory: it establishes that a reader encountering pourchase in a primary source should look to the doctrine of purchase for analytical content.
What historical dictionaries do not adequately address is the breadth of the classical purchase concept itself. Researchers should not rely on the dictionary entry for pourchase to understand the full scope of the doctrine — the classical purchase/descent distinction, its consequences for warranty and title, and its erosion under modern recording and conveyancing statutes all require consultation of treatise-level sources under Purchase.
Jurisdictional Note
The term pourchase has no modern jurisdictional application. Its legal significance is confined to the English common law tradition as it developed through the medieval and early modern periods. American jurisdictions inherited the purchase/descent distinction but the Law French form of the term did not survive into American legal usage.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Purchase (Acquisition of Property)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Descent and Distribution
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Law French in the Common Law Tradition