TENA - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

TENAAuthored

The Law Mind • 538 words

Definition

TENA is a historical legal term referring to a coif — a close-fitting cap or head covering — worn by ecclesiastics. In medieval English legal and ecclesiastical contexts, the term identified this distinctive clerical headgear, which carried ceremonial and status significance within church hierarchy.

The term is of narrow historical scope and appears principally as a passing reference in older legal dictionaries, often in connection with ecclesiastical dress codes or the symbolic vestments associated with clerical office.

Note: Rapalje & Lawrence's entry for TENA transitions immediately into a substantive discussion of TENANCY, which is a separate and unrelated term. Researchers consulting that source should take care not to conflate the two entries, as the physical layout of the original text runs them together.

Why It Matters in Research

TENA is a term of very limited practical research utility in modern legal contexts. Its primary value is historical and ecclesiastical: a researcher working in medieval English church law, canon law history, or the law of ecclesiastical offices may encounter the term in older records, inventories of church property, or proceedings involving clerical dress and vestments.

The chief research trap is the Rapalje & Lawrence entry itself, where the definition of TENA occupies only a single line before the dictionary pivots to TENANCY. Researchers scanning the original source may read the two entries as continuous, absorbing the tenancy discussion as if it were still part of the TENA definition. It is not.

Outside of specialized ecclesiastical history, TENA is unlikely to appear in case law, statute, or modern legal commentary. Researchers who encounter the word in a historical document and suspect a different legal meaning should verify context carefully — the word may be a variant spelling, a place name, or a surname rather than this technical term.

Historical Dictionary Support

Rapalje & Lawrence provide the only entry among standard legal dictionaries consulted. Their treatment is minimal: a single-sentence definition identifying the tena as a coif worn by ecclesiastics, with no further elaboration on legal significance, historical period, or jurisdictional context.

No additional depth is supplied by the source. The absence of cross-references, case citations, or statutory authority in the original entry reflects the term's peripheral status even within Victorian-era legal lexicography — included for completeness rather than practical application.

Other major historical legal dictionaries, including Bouvier and Black's, do not appear to carry a standalone entry for TENA, which further confirms its narrow footprint in the legal literature.

Jurisdictional Note

The term is rooted in English ecclesiastical law and has no meaningful presence in American legal usage. Researchers working in jurisdictions with codified canon law or church property law derived from English ecclesiastical tradition are the most likely to encounter it.

TENAmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

A coif worn by ecclesiastics. TENANCY is the relation of a tenant to the land which he holds. Hence it signifies (1) the estate of a tenant, as in the expressions "joint tenancy," "tenancy in common;" (2) the term or interest of a tenant for years or at will, as when we say that a lessee must remove his fixtures during his tenancy. (See FIXTURES, because situated without Temple-bar.-Encycl. 23.) In old writers, "tenancy" someLond. TEMPORAL ESTATE, (in a will). 8 Ves. 617; 3 Wils. 418. TEMPORAL ESTATE AND EFFECTS, (in a will). 3 Brod. & B. 85, 91. TEMPORAL GOODS, (in a will). 3 Rand. (Va.) 280. TEMPORAL LORDS.-The peers of England; the bishops are not in strictness held to be peers, but merely lords of parliament. 2 Steph. Com. (7 edit.) 330, 345. times denotes the land itself, "the tenant may plead that the tenancy is extra feudum of him." (Co. Litt. 1b.) This use of the word is obsolete. See TENANT; TENURE. TENANCY AT SUFFERANCE, (defined). 12 Barb. (N. Y.) 481. TENANCY AT WILL, (defined). 57 Ala. 304. TENANCY IN COMMON, in the strict sense of the term, is where two or more persons are entitled to land in such