Definition
Reditus jacens is a Latin phrase from medieval common law meaning, literally, "lying income" or "income in abeyance." It describes a rent, revenue, or income that is currently unclaimed, suspended, or without an active owner to receive it — a yield or return that exists in law but has no present claimant. The concept belongs to the broader Latin legal vocabulary surrounding property that "lies" in an intermediate or dormant state, awaiting a rightful recipient.
The term is closely related to the general Latin verb jacere (to lie, to be in abeyance), which medieval jurists applied to actions, rights, and property interests that were suspended rather than extinguished. A reditus jacens was not a nullity — the income or rent continued to exist and accrue — but its receipt was legally suspended pending resolution of some intervening circumstance, such as the death of a tenant, an undetermined succession, or an unresolved title dispute.
Common Confusion
REDITAS JACENS vs. HEREDITAS JACENS: The more frequently encountered phrase in historical sources is hereditas jacens — an inheritance lying in abeyance before an heir has accepted or been identified. Reditus jacens applies the same structural concept not to an inheritance as a whole but specifically to income or rents. Researchers encountering either term in historical texts should distinguish carefully: hereditas jacens concerns the estate itself; reditus jacens concerns the revenue stream flowing from property in a similar suspended condition. The two concepts share a framework but are not interchangeable.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal sources, particularly in medieval treatises and Year Books influenced by Bracton and the Latin legal tradition. Researchers working in those materials should treat it as a companion term to the broader jacere vocabulary — jacet actio (an action lies), jacet exceptio (an exception lies), and hereditas jacens — rather than as an independent doctrine with its own substantial common law history.
Because reditus jacens is a descriptive Latin phrase rather than a named legal doctrine, it may appear in historical sources without formal definition, used as shorthand by scribes and pleaders who assumed familiarity. Modern legal dictionaries and digests largely omit it. Researchers who encounter it in archival or manuscript sources and seek to understand its precise application should work backward from the surrounding procedural or property context: the "lying" state of the income is the key, not any fixed technical rule attached to the phrase itself.
The abeyance framework underlying this term connects forward to later equity doctrines concerning rents in arrear, suspended trusts, and the treatment of income accruing during an administrative gap in an estate. Researchers tracing the doctrinal lineage of those equity concepts may find the medieval Latin vocabulary, including reditus jacens, useful for grounding the historical baseline.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary does not carry a standalone entry for reditus jacens but provides a substantive entry for JACERE that illuminates the concept directly. Bouvier, citing Burrill and Bracton (fol. 84), defines jacere to mean: to lie (as an action), to be applicable or available, to be competent or legally proper — and also to be fallen, in a state of prostration, unclaimed, or in abeyance. This dual meaning — something that "lies" in the sense of being legally available, and something that "lies" in the sense of being dormant or suspended — captures exactly the ambiguity that makes jacens phrases require context to interpret. A reditus jacens is income that "lies" in the second sense: suspended, unclaimed, waiting.
Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae (c. 1235), the foundational common law treatise from which much of this Latin vocabulary derives, uses jacens terminology throughout to describe property and rights in transitional states. Researchers consulting Bracton directly will encounter the vocabulary in its native habitat.
No major historical legal dictionary — Bouvier, Black's early editions, or Tomlin's Law Dictionary — carries a dedicated entry for reditus jacens specifically, which itself signals its status: a descriptive phrase of art rather than a named legal doctrine. This is a gap researchers should note when working in comparative legal history, as continental civil law sources may use analogous terminology in ways that do not map cleanly onto the English common law usage.
Jurisdictional Note
This term belongs to the historical common law tradition of England. It has no recognized modern doctrinal life in any common law jurisdiction. Researchers working in American, Canadian, or Australian historical legal materials from the colonial or early national periods may encounter it in sources directly drawing on Bracton or early English common law, but it would be unusual outside of that medieval and early modern English context.