Definition
An obsolete Latin-form term appearing in early English legal records, equivalent to the more familiar SEISIRE (or SEIZE in modern usage). SAISIRE denotes the act of taking possession of property — specifically, the formal legal investiture of a person with possession of a freehold estate. The term derives from the Law French *saisir*, reflecting the Norman legal vocabulary that saturated English land law following the Conquest. In most contexts where SAISIRE appears, it is interchangeable with SEISIRE and carries the same substantive meaning: the act of seising, or the condition of being seised of, real property.
Common Confusion
SAISIRE, SEISIRE, and SEISIN are related but distinct in form. SAISIRE and SEISIRE are verbal or process-oriented terms — the act of putting into possession. SEISIN is the resulting state — the condition of lawful possession itself. Researchers encountering SAISIRE in manuscript or early printed sources should not treat it as a separate legal concept; it is an orthographic and linguistic variant, not a term with independent doctrinal content. The distinction that matters is between the act (SAISIRE/SEISIRE) and the status (SEISIN), not between the various spellings of the act itself.
Why It Matters in Research
SAISIRE is essentially a spelling artifact of medieval and early modern legal Latin, and its significance to researchers is almost entirely navigational. Several points warrant attention:
First, spelling instability is extreme in this cluster of terms. Early manuscript records, plea rolls, and Year Books may render the same concept as *saisire*, *seisire*, *seisina*, *saisina*, or numerous other variants depending on the scribe, period, and jurisdiction. A corpus search limited to one spelling will miss cognate occurrences.
Second, Burrill's cross-reference to SEISIRE is the operative move here. Any substantive research on the legal concept should be conducted under SEISIN and SEISIRE, where the doctrine is fully developed. SAISIRE is a pointer, not a destination.
Third, Burrill's entry conflates two distinct concepts under a single head — the entry for SAISIRE bleeds into SAKE (a lord's right of amercing tenants in his court, and acquittance of suit at county and hundred courts). This is a formatting artifact of older dictionary construction and not a statement that the two concepts are legally related. Researchers using digitized versions of Burrill should be alert to this adjacency causing false positives in keyword searches.
Fourth, the Law French origin is significant for paleographic work. *Saisir* entered English legal Latin directly from Norman French practice, and early Anglo-Norman records may use the French verbal form rather than its Latinized variant. Familiarity with both registers is necessary for full coverage of early land records.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source with a dedicated entry, and it treats SAISIRE economically: a brief identification as an old Latin form of SEISIRE, with the cross-reference doing the primary work. No substantive doctrine is attached to the term at this entry. This restraint is appropriate — Burrill correctly signals that the doctrinal content lives elsewhere.
The entry's brevity accurately reflects the term's status in the historical literature. SAISIRE does not appear as a term of art in the major treatises on real property in its own right; it surfaces in record Latin contexts where scribal practice varied. Researchers consulting Coke, Littleton, or Bracton will find the concept under its more stable Latin and English forms.
Burrill's conflation with SAKE in the same entry sequence is a reminder that historical dictionaries, however authoritative, were organized by practical alphabetical convenience and not always with precision about conceptual boundaries.
Jurisdictional Note
SAISIRE appears almost exclusively in English and Anglo-Norman legal sources. Scots law has a parallel vocabulary of sasine (derived from the same root) with its own developed doctrine; the terms are cognate but the legal systems diverged substantially. Researchers working in Scottish records should consult SASINE as a separate entry rather than treating it as equivalent to English SEISIN.