Definition
An archaic, clipped form of ASSURANCE, used historically to denote a covenant or undertaking — particularly in the conveyancing context — by which a vendor of real property binds himself to perform such further acts as may be reasonably required to perfect the purchaser's title. The term appears rarely in legal sources and should be understood as a variant of its parent term rather than an independent legal concept with distinct technical content.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): assurance; guarantee.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Labeled simply "Assurance. [Obs.]" — already marked as obsolete in Shakespeare's era.
The gap between common and legal usage is largely historical: "surance" as an independent word had fallen out of ordinary English by the time modern legal dictionaries were compiled. Its appearance in legal texts reflects archaic drafting conventions rather than a living term. Researchers encountering it in older instruments should read it as shorthand for "assurance" and consult that entry for full doctrinal content.
Common Confusion
SURANCE vs. ASSURANCE vs. INSURANCE: These three terms share a root but occupy distinct legal spaces. Assurance is the broader conveyancing and covenant term, and also the older English word for what Americans now call insurance. Insurance has narrowed in modern usage to indemnity contracts. Surance is simply an aphetic (prefix-dropped) form of assurance and carries no independent meaning. Bouvier's own entries under related headings — including the Court of Assurance and employer's liability insurance — use "assurance" and "insurance" as the operative terms; "surance" appears only as a clipped variant in older texts.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers are most likely to encounter "surance" in one of two contexts: pre-nineteenth-century conveyancing instruments (deeds, indentures, and title documents using archaic shorthand) or transcription artifacts in digitized legal texts where "assurance" has been corrupted or abbreviated. In either case, the word should trigger a search for the full term ASSURANCE rather than treatment as a distinct doctrinal category.
The source material returned under this headword by Bouvier's is revealing: the definitions retrieved relate to market value, casus foederis, the Court of Assurance, the covenant of further assurance, contract deviation, employer's liability insurance, and marine insurance. None of these is a definition of "surance" as such. This is a corpus artifact — the dictionary's proximity-based retrieval is surfacing entries clustered around the assurance/insurance family. Researchers using Law Mind's historical dictionary corpus should be alert to this pattern: headword searches for archaic or clipped terms may return a neighborhood of related entries rather than a precise match.
The practically significant entry retrieved is the covenant of further assurance: an undertaking by a vendor to perform whatever additional acts are reasonably necessary to complete the transfer of title. This covenant was standard in English conveyancing and remains recognized (though less frequently litigated) in modern real property law. If a historical document uses "surance" in a covenant context, this is almost certainly the doctrine intended.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary defines surance by reference to the covenant of further assurance: a covenant on the part of the vendor to do such further acts as the purchaser may reasonably require to perfect title, operating both as to the vendor's title and the instrument of conveyance. Bouvier's does not provide a discrete entry for "surance" as such; the entries surfaced in the source material are neighbors in the assurance/insurance cluster, not direct definitions.
Both dictionaries treat the parent term ASSURANCE at length. The covenant of further assurance, the Court of Assurance (a specialized London tribunal for insurance disputes under 43 Eliz. c. 12), and the assurance/insurance distinction in English versus American usage are all well-covered under ASSURANCE in both Black's and Bouvier's. The historical dictionaries are silent on "surance" as an independent term — appropriately so, since it was already obsolete when those dictionaries were compiled.
Researchers should note that Bouvier's treatment of employer's liability insurance and marine insurance — though surfaced by proximity here — reflects the nineteenth-century expansion of the insurance principle beyond its marine origins. That doctrinal history belongs under INSURANCE, not under this headword.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Assurance (Conveyancing); Covenant of Further Assurance; Insurance (Historical Development).