Definition
Latin. Literally, "a sack with a broach." In old English law, a form of feudal tenure or service obligation by which a landholder was bound to furnish the sovereign with a sack and a broach (a pitcher or pointed vessel) for the use of the royal army. The obligation arose at certain places and certain times as specified by the terms of the tenure, and typically accompanied a broader service duty — the provision of a man and a horse as well — in support of military operations.
The term describes both the physical objects owed and the tenure itself: the landholding was defined, at least in part, by this supply obligation to the crown.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow antiquarian term encountered almost exclusively in secondary treatments of medieval English feudal tenure and in citations to Bracton. Researchers will not find it in modern case law. Its significance is entirely historical: it illustrates the variety of non-military, non-monetary services that could constitute the legal substance of a feudal holding in medieval English land law.
Researchers working in the history of English feudal obligations — particularly those tracing the spectrum between knight service, serjeanty, and petty serjeanty — may encounter this term in commentaries on Bracton or in nineteenth-century legal dictionaries that drew directly from him. The term signals that the tenure in question was a form of serjeanty: a holding defined by a specific personal or household service to the king, rather than by money rent or military knight service in the strict sense.
The most important navigational point: all dictionary entries trace to a single source, Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, Book II, Chapter 16. Any research into this term ultimately leads there. Researchers working from the nineteenth-century dictionaries should be aware that those sources are themselves secondary; none adds substantive analysis beyond restating Bracton's formulation. Burrill's is the most useful of the shelf sources because it preserves a portion of Bracton's original Latin text, providing context that the other dictionaries omit.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four shelf sources are in close agreement, which is unsurprising given that they all derive from the same passage in Bracton. Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier's offer nearly identical one-sentence definitions. Minor verbal variation — Black's and Bouvier's say "finding" the items, while Bouvier's at one point says "sending" — reflects no substantive difference and is likely a copying artifact across editions.
Burrill's is the outlier in a useful way. It preserves a fragment of Bracton's Latin: "Si quis teneat per servitium inveniendi domino regi, certis locis et certis temporibus, unum hominem, et unum equum, et saccum cum brochia pro aliqua necessitate vel utilitate exercitum suum contingente" — roughly, "if anyone holds by the service of finding for the king, at certain places and certain times, one man and one horse, and a sack with a broach, for any need or utility touching his army." This passage makes clear that the saccus cum brochia was not an isolated obligation but part of a bundled service comprising man, horse, and supplies. The other dictionaries omit this context entirely, which risks giving a misleadingly narrow picture of the tenure.
None of the historical dictionaries situates the term within the taxonomy of feudal tenures (serjeanty, grand vs. petty serjeanty, socage) or discusses how such supply obligations were treated as feudalism declined. That analytical work is left to the researcher.
Jurisdictional Note
This term has no application outside the historical law of medieval England. It reflects pre-Norman and Norman-era feudal structures that had no direct transplantation into American law. Researchers in English legal history should consult Bracton directly; researchers in American law will not encounter operative use of this term.