Definition
"Which was granted." A Latin phrase appearing in early English law reports to record that the court agreed with a proposition put forward by counsel or acknowledged a point as conceded. It signals judicial or collegial assent to an argument, ruling, or submission — essentially a formal notation that the matter in question was accepted without further contest. The phrase functions as a term of record rather than a substantive legal doctrine.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in the old reports should understand it as a procedural marker, not a term of art with independent legal weight. Its significance lies entirely in context: what preceded the phrase determines what was actually granted or conceded. In early English reporting practice, reporters frequently used Latin shorthand phrases to compress court proceedings, and quod concessum fuit is one such compression — it tells you that assent occurred but not always what the full reasoning was.
The phrase appears in the older manuscript and print reports, particularly those predating systematic modern reporting. Because early reporters varied in their fidelity to actual court proceedings, a notation of quod concessum fuit should not be treated as equivalent to a holding or ratio decidendi. It may reflect nothing more than a passing acknowledgment during argument.
When tracing the phrase across sources, note that it appears in close company with the variant quod fuit concessum — effectively the same phrase with inverted word order. Burrill cross-references the two explicitly. Researchers should search both forms when working through historical digests or indexes, as different reporters and compilers favored different word orders. Treating them as separate phrases risks missing parallel citations.
The practical research trap is reading quod concessum fuit as affirmative judicial authority when it may record only an uncontested assumption during argument. Courts and counsel sometimes concede points for purposes of argument without intending them as settled law, and the abbreviated reporting style of the period does not always make this distinction clear.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives a terse entry: "Which was granted. A phrase in the old reports. 11 Mod. 68. See Quod fuit concessum." The cross-reference to quod fuit concessum confirms these are variant forms of the same phrase rather than distinct legal terms. Burrill offers no elaboration on the substantive function of the phrase beyond its literal translation and its appearance in the old reports, which is consistent with its nature as a reporting convention rather than a doctrine.
The citation to 11 Mod. 68 (Modern Reports, volume 11) locates the phrase in the early eighteenth-century English reports, situating it squarely within the era of abbreviated Latin court reporting. Researchers should not expect expansion of this entry in other historical dictionaries of the period; the phrase is a formula of the reporters' craft, and most lexicographers treated it as self-explanatory once translated.
Jurisdictional Note
This phrase belongs exclusively to the English common law reporting tradition and will not appear in American sources except in opinions or commentaries directly citing or quoting early English reports. It has no independent American legal usage.