Definition
Sequestrare is a Latin verb from the civil law meaning to sequester or sequestrate — that is, to place disputed property into the custody of a neutral third party pending resolution of a legal dispute, or to subject property to sequestration by judicial or administrative authority. The term functions as the infinitive form underlying the procedural concept of sequestration, and appears in legal Latin maxims and court memoranda as shorthand for the act of imposing that custodial hold.
The verb captures two related but distinct operations: (1) placing goods or property in the hands of a sequester (a neutral depositary) so that neither litigant may access them during litigation; and (2) the broader act of seizing or withholding property under legal authority, as in admiralty or ecclesiastical proceedings.
Common Confusion
Sequestrare is frequently encountered by researchers as a root form behind sequestration, sequester, and sequestravit. These are not interchangeable in historical sources. Sequestrare is the act itself in abstract or directive form ("the goods are to be sequestered"). Sequestravit is the perfect tense — a completed act ("he sequestered") — and appears in procedural records as a return or recital of what was done. Sequester refers either to the neutral custodian or to the state of being held under such custody. Conflating these forms can cause a researcher to misread a court record as ordering sequestration when it is actually reporting one already accomplished.
Why It Matters in Research
Sequestrare appears almost exclusively in Latin legal formulae, court memoranda, and civilian treatises rather than in common-law pleading books. Researchers working in early English equity records, admiralty practice, or ecclesiastical court materials are most likely to encounter it. The term signals a distinctly civilian procedural tradition: common-law courts did not use this vocabulary, and its presence in a document is itself a marker of the jurisdictional register — admiralty, chancery, or ecclesiastical — in which the proceeding occurred.
Burrill's citation to a Memorandum in the Scaccarium (Exchequer) from the reign of Edward I (Mem. in Scacc. T. 19 Edw. I) is notable. It places sequestrare in royal financial administration as early as the late thirteenth century, suggesting the concept migrated beyond purely ecclesiastical or admiralty contexts into fiscal enforcement. Researchers tracing the history of sequestration as a revenue or enforcement tool — rather than purely as a dispute-holding mechanism — should note this early Exchequer usage.
The maxim quoted by Burrill — Bona sunt sequestranda, et neutri litigantium tradenda — encapsulates the procedural logic of sequestration: goods held in neutral custody belong to neither party until the dispute is resolved. This principle connects directly to the development of interpleader and stakeholder doctrines in equity. Researchers examining those doctrines in historical sources may find sequestrare and its cognates appearing in the background civil-law authorities that equity judges drew upon.
Because the term is Latin and confined largely to professional legal Latin, it will not appear in vernacular pleadings or common-law Year Books. Its presence in a source typically indicates either a learned practitioner's hand or a formulary drawing on civilian models.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary English-language legal dictionary source for this term. His entry is compact but precise: he identifies the civil law origin, provides the infinitive and perfect-tense forms, and supplies two quotations — one from a thirteenth-century Exchequer memorandum and one from Clerke's Praxis Curiae Admiralitatis — that together illustrate both fiscal and admiralty applications.
The citation to Calv. Lex. (Calvinus, Lexicon Juridicum) points to the broader civilian lexicographical tradition on which Burrill draws; Calvinus was a standard reference for Latin legal terminology. Burrill does not attempt a full doctrinal treatment of sequestration here, directing readers instead to the headword SEQUESTER for substantive development. This cross-referencing pattern is characteristic of Burrill's method: Latin verbal forms receive brief definitional entries, while doctrine is consolidated under the primary noun or English-language term.
No significant divergence among historical sources is apparent for this term; it is a technical Latin form with a stable, narrow meaning across the period in which it was in active use.
Jurisdictional Note
The term belongs to civilian legal culture and appears in jurisdictions — or specialized courts within common-law jurisdictions — that drew on Roman and canon law. In English legal history, this means primarily admiralty, ecclesiastical, and early equity proceedings. Researchers working in Scots law, which retained a stronger civilian tradition, may encounter sequestrare and related forms more broadly than in English sources.