Definition
A Latin maxim-term from the law of contracts, meaning to go back, recede, or withdraw from an agreement. The phrase appears most fully as *possunt contrahentes recedere de contractu*: the contracting parties are able to withdraw from a contract. In practice, *recedere* functions less as a standalone legal term and more as a component of a Latin maxim expressing the principle that parties who mutually enter a contract may, by mutual agreement, also withdraw from it. The concept maps broadly onto what modern law addresses through mutual rescission, cancellation by consent, or release.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To recede; to move back or withdraw from a position.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To go back; to withdraw; to retreat from a point or position previously taken.
The gap here is narrow but worth noting for legal researchers: the ordinary meaning of recede implies a physical or metaphorical pulling back, often unilateral. The legal use of *recedere* in the maxim form is expressly bilateral — it is the mutual power of contracting parties to undo what they have jointly made. A researcher encountering the term in historical sources should resist reading it as describing a unilateral right of withdrawal.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is primarily encountered in older common-law treatises and maxim collections, not in case law as a freestanding doctrine. Researchers will almost never encounter *recedere* as a headnote term or case caption. Its practical significance lies in identifying the underlying principle it encodes when reading Latin-dense sources: the bilateral power of rescission.
The critical research trap is terminological displacement. Modern sources addressing the same principle use terms like mutual rescission, accord and satisfaction, or cancellation by agreement — none of which will cross-reference *recedere* by name. If you encounter the term in a historical document and search modern legal databases for it, results will be sparse. You must translate the concept and follow the modern doctrinal vocabulary instead.
The Burrill fragment (*possunt contrahentes recedere de contractu*) is characteristic of how the term appears: as part of a maxim, not as a defined doctrine with elements. This reflects the broader way Latin maxims functioned in early common law — as compressed expressions of principle, cited for rhetorical and persuasive authority rather than as operative rules. Researchers working in colonial-era American law, early English equity materials, or pre-codification contract doctrine will find this maxim-mode prevalent and must interpret these terms accordingly.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary dictionary source for this term in the Law Mind corpus, and his entry is fragmentary — the definition trails into the maxim without completing the full text. The maxim *possunt contrahentes recedere de contractu* translates as "contracting parties are able to withdraw from a contract," and it was a recognized common-law expression of the consensual basis of contract. What Burrill does not address — and what historical dictionaries generally underserve — is the important qualification that attended this principle even in early sources: mutual rescission was understood to require equivalent consideration or mutual assent, not merely one party's desire to exit. The maxim states a power; it does not state an unconditional right. Researchers relying solely on the maxim as Burrill renders it may overread it as permissive of unilateral withdrawal, which was not the accepted doctrine.
No significant divergence between historical sources exists here because coverage is thin — this is not a heavily treated term. Its appearance in law dictionaries is consistent but sparse, reflecting its status as a learned Latin reference point rather than a term of art with contested applications.