Black's Law Dictionary

A feast or festival. Festum stultorum, the feast of fools.

Chains or shackles for the feet; irons used to secure the legs of convicts, unruly prisoners, etc. Similar chains securing the wrists are calied "handcuffs."

In Scotch law. A holding or tenure where the vassal, in place of military servIce, makes his return in grain or money. Distinguished from "wardholding," which is the mllitary tenur

The reddendo, or annual return from the vassal to a superior in a feu holding. —-Feu holding. A holding by tenure of rendering grain or money in place of military service. Bell.

The tenant of a feu; 1 feu-vassal. Bell.

In feudal law. An estate in land held of a superior on condition of rendering him services. 2 Bl. Comm. 105. An inheritable right to the use and occupation of lands, held on condit

Feuds or fees.

Pertaining to feuds or fees; relating to or growing out of the feudal system or feudal law; having the quality of a feud, as distinguished from "allodial." —Feudal actions. An anci

An ancient name for real actions, or such as concern real property only. 3 Bl. Comm. 117.

The feudal system; the aggregate of feudal principles and usages.

To reduce to a feudal tenure; to cohform to feudalism. Webster.

The body of jurisprudence relating to feuds; the real-property law of the feudal system; the law anciently regulating the property relations of lord and vassal, and the creation, i

The equivalent of "seisin" under the feudal system.

The system of feuds. A political and social system wnich prevailed throughout Europe during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth cenfuries, and is supposed to have grown out of th

The tenures of real estate under the feudal system, such as knight-service, socage, villenage, etc.

A tenant who holds by feudal tenure, (also spelled "fuodatory" and "feudatory.") Held by feudal service. Relating to feuds or feudal tenures.

A recompense for engaging in a feud, and the damages consequent, it having been the custom in ancient times for all the kindred to engage in their kinsman's quarrel. Jacob.

An occasional early form of "feud" in the sense of private war or vengeance. Termes de la Ley. See Feud.

A writer on feuds, as Cuja-cius, Spelman, etc.

In Spanish law. Feud or fee. White, New Recop. b. 2, tit 2, c. 2.

In Lat. A feud, fief or fee. A' right of using and enjoying forever the lands of another, which the lord grants on condition that the tenant shall render fealty, military duty, and

An open feud or fief; a fief resulting back to the lord, where the blood of the person last seised was utterly extinct and gone. 2 Bl. Comm. 245.

An ancient feud or fief; a fief descended to the vassal from his ancestors. 2 Bl. Comm. 212, 221. A fief which ancestors had possessed for more than four generations. Spelman; Prie

A free feud. One which was noble and free from talliage and other subsidies to which the pleleia feuda (vulgar feuds) were subject. Spelman.

A fee held on the military service of appearing fully armed at the ban and arriere ban. Spelman,

An improper or derivative feud or fief. 2 Bl. Comm. 58.

An indivisible or impartible feud or fief; descendible to the eldest son alque. 2 Bl. Comm. 215.

A liege feud or fief; a fief held immediately of the sovereign; one for which the vassal owed fealty to his lord against all persons. 1 Bl. Comm. 367; Spelman.

A maternal fief; a fief descended to the feudatory from his mother. 2 Bl. Comm. 212-

A new feud or fief; a fief which began in the person of the feudatory, and did not come to him by succession. Spelman ; 2 Bl. Comm. 212; Priest v. Cummings, 20 Wend. (N. Y.) 349.

A fee which the paternal ancestors had held for four generations. Calvin. One descendible to heirs on the paternal side only. 2 Bl. Comm. 223. One which might be held by males only

A proper, genuine, and original feud or fief; being of a purely military Character, and held by military service. 2 Bl. Comm. 57, 58.

A restricted fee. One limited to descend to certain classes of heirs. 2 Bl. Comm. 112, note; 1 Washb. Real Prop. 66.

A fee for which the tenant did guard and owed fealty and homage. 'Spelman.

Fr. In old French and Canadian law. Hearth and home. A term importing actual settlement upon land by a tenant

An indefinite expression for a small or limited number. In cases where exact description is required, the use of this word will not answer. Butts v. Stowe, 53 Vt. 603; Allen v. Kir

A Latin abbreviation for "Fragmenta," designating the Digest or Pandects in the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian; so called because that work is made up of fragments or extracts f

L. Fr. To pledge one's faith. Kelham.

Sp. In Spanish law, trust, confidence, and correlatively a legal duty or obligation arising therefrom. The term is sufficiently broad In meaning to include both a general obligatio

In Scotch law. He that has the fee or feu. The proprietor is termed "fiar," in contradistinction to the life-renter. 1 Kames, Eq. Pref. One whose property is charged with a life-re

The value of grain in the different counties of Scotland, fixed yearly by the respective sheriffs, in the month of February, with the assistance of juries. These regulate the price

(Lat "Let it.be done.") In English practice. A short order or warrant of a judge or magistrate directing some act to be done; an authority issuing from some competent source for th

Let justice be done. On a petition to the king for his warrant to bring a writ of error in parliament, he writes on the top of the petition, "Fiat jusMia," and then the writ of err

Let it be done as it is asked. A form of granting a petition.

In Roman law. A fiction; an assumption or supposition of the law. "Fictio" in the old Roman law was properly a term of pleading, and signified a false averment on the part of the p

Fictio juris non est ubi veritas. Fiction yields to truth. Where there is truth, fiction of law exists not.

Fiction is against the truth, but it is to be esteemed truth.

Where truth is, fiction of law does not exist.

A legal fiction does not properly work loss or injury. 3 Coke, 36; Broom, Max. 129.

A fiction of law injures no one. 2 Rolle, 502 ; 3 Bl. Comm. 43; Low v. Little, 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 348.

An assumption or supposition of law that something which is or may be false is true or that a state of facts exists which has never really taken place. New Hampshire Strafford Bank

Founded on a fiction; having the character of a fiction; false, feigned or pretended. —Fictitious action. An action brought for the sole purpose of obtaining the opinion of the cou

An action brought for the sole purpose of obtaining the opinion of the court on a point of law, not for the settlement of any actual controversy between the parties. Smith v. Junct

A counterfeit, feigned, or pretended name taken by a person, differing in some essential particular from his true name, (consisting of Christian name and patronymic,) with the impl

A. person appearing in the writ or reconi as the plaintiff in a suit, but who in reality does not exist, or who is ignorant of the suit and of the use of his name in it. It is a co

A term derived from the Latin "fldei-commissarius," and occasionally used by writers on equity jurisprudence as a substitute for the law French term "cestui que trust," as being mo

In the civll law this term corresponds nearly to our "cestui que trust." It designates a person who has the real or beneficial interest in an estate or fund, the title or administr

In the civil law. A species of trust; being a gift of property (usually by will) to a person, accompanied by a request or direction of the donor that the recipient will transfer th

In the civil law. To order a thing upon one's faith; to pledge one's self; to become surety for another. Fide-jubes t Fide-jubeo: Do you pledge yourself? I do pledge myself. Inst 3

In Roman law. A guarantor ; one who becomes responsible for the payment of another's debt, by a stipulation which binds him to discharge it if the principal debtor fails to do so.

Lat. Fealty, (q. v.) Fidelitas. De nullo tenemento, quod tenetur ad terminum, fit homagii; fit tamen inde fidelitatis sacramentum. Co. Litt. 676. Fealty. For no tenement which is h

See Insurance.

Lat To betray faith or fealty. A term used in feudal and old English law of a feudatory or feudal tenant who does not keep that fealty which he has sworn to the lord. Leg. Hen. I.

See Fide-Jussor.

Lat. Faith; honesty; confidence ; trust; veracity; honor. Occurring in the phrases "bona fides," (good faith,) "mala fides," (bad faith,) and "uberrima fides," (the utmost or most

Bacon. A trust is an obligation of conscience of one to the will of another.

Faith must be observed. An agent must not violate the confidence reposed in him. Story, Ag. § 192.

Faith must be kept; the simplicity of the law of nations mnst prevail. A rule applied to bills of exchange as a sort of sacred instruments. 3 Burrows, 1672; Story, Bills, § 15.

In Roman law. An early form of mortgage or pledge, in which both the title and possession of the property were passed to the creditor by a formal act of sale, (properly with the so

An adjective having the same meaning as "fiduciary;" as, in the phrase "public or fiducial office." Ky. St. § 3752; Moss v. Rowlett, 112 Ky. 121, 65 S. W. 153.

In Roman law. The elder brother of an emancipated pupillus, whose father had died lcaving him still under fourteen years of age.

One is said to act in a "fiduciary capacity" or to receive money or contract a debt in a "fiduciary capacity," when the business which he transacts, or the money or property which

An agreement by which a person delivers a thing to another on the condition that he will restore it to him.

A relation subsisting between two persons in regard to a business, contract, or piece of property, or in regard to the general business or estate of one of them, of such a characte

The term is derived from the Roman law, and means (as a noun) a person holding the character of a trustee or a character analogous to that of a trustee, in respect to the trust and

A fee, feod or feud.

Fr. In Norman feudal law. A fief or fee held by the tenure of knight-service; a knight's fee. 2 Bl. Comm. 62.

In old English law. The holder of a fief or fee; a feeholder or freeholder.

In Spanish law. A sequestrator; a' person in whose handsa thing in dispute is judicially deposited; a receiver. Las Partidas, pt. 3, tit. 9, 1. 1.

This term might well be considered as definite and certain a description as "close," and might be used in law'; but it is not a usual description in legal proceedings. 1 Chit. Gen.

In Spanish law. Sequestration. This is allowed in six cases by the Spanish law where the title to property is in dispute. Las Partidas, pt 3, tit. 3, 1. 1.

An ancient custom in England, by which officers of the forest and bailiffs of hundreds had the right to compel the hundred to furnish them with ale. Tomlins.

An officer elected, in England, by the owners of a regulated pasture to keep in order the fences, ditches, etc., on the land, to regulate the times during which animals are to be a

Ancient Gothic courts of an inferior jurisdiction, so called because four were instituted within every inferior district or hundred. 3 Bl. Comm. 34.

Lat To be made; to be done. See In Fieri.

(That you cause to be made.) In practice. A writ of execution commanding the sheriff to levy and make the amount of a judgment from the goods and chattels of the Judgment debtor. —

When a sheriff to a common fi. fa. returns nulla bona, and that the defendant 4s a beneficed clerk, not having any lay fee, a plaintiff may issue a fi. fa. de bonis ecclesiasticis,

The writ issued on an ordinary judgment against an executor when sued for a debt due by his testator. If the sheriff returns to this writ nulla bona, and a devastavit, (q. v.,) the

(I have caused to be made.) In practice. The name given to the return made by a sheriff or other officer to a writ of fieri facias, where he has collected the whole or a part, of t

It ought not to be done, but [if] done, it is valid. Shep. Touch. 6; 5 Coke, 39; T. Raym. 58; 1 Strange, 526. A maxim frequently applied in practice. Nichols v. Ketcham, 19 Johns.

An abbreviation for fieri facias, (which see.)

In English law. This was originally a tax or tribute, levied at intervals by act of parliament, consisting of one-fifteenth of all the movable property of the subject or personalty

An encounter, with blows or other personal violence, between two persons. See State v. Gladden, 73 N. C. 155; Carpenter v. Pcople, 31 Colo. 284, 72 Pac. 1072; Co.les v. New York Ca

Sax. A mulct or fine for making a quarrel to the disturbance of the peace. Called also by Cowell "forisfactura pugnœ." The amount was one hundred and twenty shillings. Cowell.

An officer of the superior courts at Westminster, whose duty it was to file the writs on which he made process. There were fourteen filacers, and it was their duty to make out all

In old English practice. To file. Townsh. PI. 67.

n. A thread, string or wire upon which writs and other exhibits in courts and offices are fastened or filed for the more safe-keeping and ready turning to the same. Spelman ; Cowel

Brit. A name given to villeins in the laws of Hoel Dda. Barring. Obs. St. 302.

To fix a bastard child on some one, as its father. To declare whose child it is. 2 W. Bl. 1017.

The relation of a child to its parent; correlative to "paternity." The judicial assignment of an illegitimate child to a designated man as its father. In the civil law. The descent