Definition
A Latin term from old conveyancing practice meaning "rendering." Reddendo was the operative word in a grant or conveyance by which the grantor reserved a rent or service to be rendered by the grantee. It appeared in formal clauses of the type: reddendo inde per annum tantum, ad certos terminos tales — "rendering therefor so much per year, at such certain times." As a grammatical matter, reddendo (the gerund form) was considered more technically correct than the more commonly encountered reddendum (the gerundive form), though both served the same functional purpose in practice.
In feudal conveyancing, the reddendo clause was the mechanism by which tenure was given substance: it named what the vassal owed the superior in exchange for the grant of land, whether in money, kind, or service. Without it, or something equivalent, the tenure lacked its defining obligation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A clause in a charter specifying the services to be rendered by a vassal to his superior.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; the term did not circulate in ordinary English.
The Wiktionary definition captures the feudal context accurately but understates the term's precise technical function. In legal usage, reddendo refers specifically to the operative word of rendition within the clause — not merely to the clause as a whole — and its significance lies as much in its grammatical form (gerund, not gerundive) as in its substantive meaning.
Common Confusion
Reddendo and reddendum are frequently treated as interchangeable in historical sources, and many old conveyances do use reddendum. Burrill notes that reddendo was the more grammatically defensible form, but this was a dispute of learned conveyancers rather than a distinction with practical legal consequences. Researchers should not assume that a source using reddendum is in error or referring to a different concept — the terms describe the same clause and the same function. The distinction matters only when parsing the precision of a particular drafter or authority.
Why It Matters in Research
Reddendo is a term of art found almost exclusively in historical sources dealing with feudal land tenure and early common law conveyancing. Researchers encountering it will typically be working with pre-modern English grants, Scottish feudal charters, or treatise commentary on the forms of tenure.
Several navigational points deserve attention:
First, the reddendo clause is the ancestor of modern rent reservation language. When tracing the development of landlord-tenant obligations or leasehold covenants, the reddendo is the historical starting point, and understanding its structure helps make sense of later doctrinal evolution.
Second, Scottish legal usage is particularly significant. Scots feudal law, which retained formal tenure structures longer than English law, made extensive use of reddendo as a term of art in charter drafting well into the modern era. Researchers working in Scottish legal history or Scots property law will encounter it in operative legal documents, not merely as an antiquarian curiosity.
Third, the Bracton and Fleta citations in Burrill point to the deep roots of the term in the foundational treatise literature of English common law. Any research into the doctrinal basis of rent, tenure conditions, or the structure of feudal grants should engage those sources directly.
Fourth, the reddendo/reddendum variation is a small but real editorial trap. When searching historical databases or indexes for one form, check for both — early print sources and manuscript copies were not consistent, and indexers were not always more careful than the original scribes.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary historical dictionary source available for this term, and its treatment is serviceable but incomplete. Burrill correctly identifies reddendo as a gerund form meaning "rendering," quotes a representative clause from Bracton, and flags the grammatical distinction from reddendum — but the entry breaks off mid-sentence in the available text, apparently truncated before completing the comparison.
Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland, cited by Burrill, would be the natural place to find a fuller treatment given the term's ongoing vitality in Scots law. Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 47a), also cited, addresses rent reservation in a common law context and provides doctrinal grounding for what the reddendo clause actually accomplished at law. Bracton (fol. 35) and Fleta (lib. 3, c. 14, § 7) are the foundational authorities. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as a pointer to those primary sources rather than a complete account.
What historical dictionaries generally miss is any treatment of the reddendo's procedural consequences — what happened when the reserved rent went unpaid, how the clause interacted with conditions subsequent, or how it was construed when ambiguous. For those questions, the treatise literature and case law must supplement the dictionary record.
Jurisdictional Note
The term has greater continuing relevance in Scots law than in English law. Scotland's feudal tenure system, formally abolished only by the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, used reddendo as a live term of art in feudal charters up to that abolition. In English law, the equivalent concept survived in attenuated form through landlord-tenant doctrine, where the operative language modernized well before any formal statutory intervention.