Definition
Tenant a volunte is a Law French term meaning a tenant at will — a person who holds land or property at the pleasure of the grantor, without a fixed term, and whose tenancy may be terminated by either party at any time. The relationship is characterized by its indefinite duration and the absence of any estate of fixed extent. The tenant holds only so long as both parties are willing, and the estate ends automatically upon the death of either party or upon any act inconsistent with its continuation.
Common Confusion
Tenant a volunte is frequently encountered in historical sources alongside related terms that describe other tenancies of uncertain or limited character. It should not be confused with tenancy at sufferance, in which the tenant originally entered lawfully but now holds over without the landlord's consent — an important distinction because a tenant at sufferance has no right to possession and is closer to a trespasser, whereas a tenant at will holds by the landlord's ongoing permission. The term also appears near Tenant Peravaile (or Paravail) in Burrill's Dictionary — a different concept entirely, referring to the lowest or bottom tenant in a chain of feudal tenure, not to the duration or character of the tenancy.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs firmly to the historical layer of Anglo-American property law and will appear almost exclusively in early English sources, colonial-era documents, and treatises drawing directly on Littleton. Researchers encountering the term in primary sources should treat it as a marker of feudal-era drafting and translate it directly to the modern doctrine of tenancy at will before attempting any further analysis.
The practical trap is terminological layering: a researcher working through older English or early American materials may encounter tenant a volunte, tenant at will, and tenancy at will used in close proximity, sometimes interchangeably and sometimes with subtle distinctions the original author did not bother to flag. The Law French form tends to signal a passage drawing on Littleton or Coke directly, which in turn means the surrounding analysis may reflect feudal assumptions — particularly the automatic termination rules tied to death or alienation — that were modified or abolished by statute in most American jurisdictions.
For corpus research purposes, the term functions as a finding aid: its presence identifies a source working in the common law tradition prior to statutory reform of landlord-tenant relations. Modern American landlord-tenant law, which has been extensively reshaped by statute, notice requirements, and tenant-protection legislation, will not use this phrase. Any Law Mind encyclopedia entry discussing tenancy at will in a contemporary context will not use tenant a volunte, so researchers must bridge the vocabulary gap manually.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's and Burrill's treat the term briefly and consistently: it means tenant at will, full stop. Black's offers only the bare translation. Burrill's is marginally more useful because it places the term in context by immediately following it with Tenant Peravaile, flagging the structural vocabulary of feudal tenure that surrounds it, and citing Littleton section 68 as the foundational authority.
The historical dictionaries do not elaborate on what a tenancy at will actually entailed beyond the label — they assume the reader will follow the cross-reference to the substantive doctrine. What they miss entirely is the doctrinal evolution: early common law tenancy at will was a precarious holding that could end on a moment's notice; over time, courts and legislatures imposed notice requirements, converted some at-will tenancies into periodic tenancies by operation of rent payment, and eventually surrounded the relationship with statutory protections that bear little resemblance to the bare feudal concept Littleton described. The historical dictionaries reflect none of this trajectory.
Jurisdictional Note
The underlying doctrine of tenancy at will varies by state statute. Most American jurisdictions now require written notice — often 30 days — before terminating an at-will tenancy, fundamentally altering the common law rule that either party could terminate instantly. Researchers applying feudal or early common law materials to modern disputes must account for this statutory overlay.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, Landlord-Tenant — Tenant's Duty to Pay Rent (property_20): relevant for understanding how rent-payment patterns can convert an at-will tenancy into a periodic tenancy.
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia, Landlord-Tenant — Constructive Eviction (property_23): relevant for the modern doctrinal context in which tenancy relationships — including at-will holdings — are now litigated.