Messuage
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
A term used in deeds in describing the.premises conveyed, It is, however, more technical than dwelling-house, and several decisions have given it a broader extent than that term has in its vernacular sense, as where it hsis been said to include a church. Moreover, as used in conveyances, it often is considered to include incidents of the house which is the principal subject of conveyance; but this is partly a rule of construction, or results from the addition of "appurte- Messuage means a house, comprising the out-buildings, the orchard, and curtilage or court-yard, and, according to the better opinion, the garden also.
Mozley Sj- W
Messuage is now synonymous with the word dwelling-house; but, as having once had a larger signification, it invariably precedes the word dwelling-house in a description of parcels. A grant of a messuage with the appurtenances will pass not only the dwelling-house, but also all buildings adjoining or attached to it, together with the curtilage, garden, and orchard, and the close in which the house is built, and any pleasure-grounds adjoining and belonging to it. Brown. Messe or messuage seems to comprise somewhat more than place of habitation; for " house " and " messuage " differ in this: that " house " cannot be intended other than the matter of building; but " messuage " includes the curtilage.
Termes de la Ley
Although the word messuage may, there is no necessity that it must, import more than the word dwelliiig-house, with which word it is frequently put in apposition and used synonymously.
Penn v. Grafton, 2 Bing. N. C. 617.
To define with precision the signification of the legal term messuage is difficult. Authors have differed in their understanding of its import. The best writers, however, represent it as synonymous with house, and as embracing within its meaning an orchard, garden, curtilage, adjoining buildings, and other appendages of a dwelling-house; but they limit the ground which may be appropriated to these purposes to a small quantity, not exceeding an acre or more. (1 Thorn. Coke. 215,216, note; 1 Shep. Touch. 94; 2 Saund. 410, note 2.) A statute, giving a widow a right to abide in the " mansion-house and messuage of her deceased husband," ought not to be construed to give to the latter term a meaning entirely new and inconsistent with its usual sense, or so as to make that term embrace a whole farm or plantation. Grimes u.
Wilson, 4 Black/. 3-31.