Definition
A Latin phrase from English feudal and manorial law referring to the right of a common bull — that is, a bull kept for the free use of all tenants within a given manor, liberty, or similar territorial unit. The phrase translates literally as "the liberty of the free bull." In practice, it describes both the animal itself and the legal entitlement attached to it: tenants of the manor were entitled to have their cows served by the common bull without individual payment or arrangement, as a customary incident of their tenure or of the lord's obligation to the community of the manor.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in older English legal sources dealing with manorial customs, copyhold tenure, and the rights incident to commons. Researchers working in feudal land law, agrarian history, or early English local administration may encounter it in manor court rolls, custumals, or surveys of manorial rights.
A key navigational point: the term is not a right held independently of tenure. It is a customary appurtenance — something attached to the holding rather than to the person — and should be read in connection with other manorial incidents such as common of pasture, estovers, and turbary. When working through historical records, do not conflate this with a general common law right; its existence and scope would have been determined by the custom of the particular manor.
The term is rare in American legal materials and essentially absent from post-feudal English law after the decline of copyhold and manorial courts. Its relevance is confined almost entirely to English legal history before the Law of Property Act 1922 abolished copyhold tenure.
Researchers should note that terms of this kind — highly specific Latin phrases encoding manorial custom — were frequently omitted or only cursorily treated in American legal dictionaries that drew on English sources. Finding fuller treatment requires consulting English manorial law treatises and agrarian histories rather than general legal dictionaries.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary give identical, minimal entries: "a common bull; because he was free to all the tenants within such a manor, liberty, etc." The 2nd edition adds the Latin attribution (Lat.) but provides no additional substance. Neither edition discusses the legal basis of the right, its relationship to other manorial incidents, or its procedural significance in manor court proceedings.
The entries agree on the essential content — the communal character of the bull as a manorial amenity — but offer no analytical depth. Neither source situates the term within the broader framework of copyhold or customary tenure, and neither flags that the right's existence depended entirely on proof of manorial custom rather than on general common law. Researchers should treat both entries as identification markers only, not as substantive legal analysis.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to English manorial law and has no recognized counterpart in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions. It is of historical interest only and is not operative in any modern legal system.