"fine sur cognizance de droit come ceo….."

[goldie61]

fine sur cognizance de droit come ceo…..

Is there anyone that can help me understand this?

I get that it was a way of transfering land and/or houses, and I have read what it has to say about it on the British History on-line website, but can’t quite get my head around this particualr Indenture from 1757.

It is between William Tabberer (and wife, but I’ll miss out all the wives as it complicates it even more), and George Peat ‘on the one part’, and William Hackett ‘on the other part’. (George Peat is William Tabberer’s son-in-law having married his daughter).
So you would expect Tabberer and Peat to be buying something off Hackett? Or at least Hackett passing on some land to Tabberer and Peat.
But the first item is George Peat paying William Tabberer £400. So George Peat is buying land off William Tabberer? (I know George Peat has the same parcels of land when he died in 1793).
The next bit is William Hackett paying Tabberer and Peat, and wives, five shillings each.
And Tabberer and Peat then have to pay to the Court of Common Pleas the ‘fine sur cognizance de droit etc’, ‘for divers other good and valuable causes and considerations them thereunto especially moving’. This is similar to phrases used in Scottish Sasines I’ve seen, and usually means it’s associated with a marriage, like a dower, or perhaps grandparents passing on their estate.
Then it goes into the detailed description of the parcels of land.

So who is buying from whom?
Have they done two deals in one Indenture? - from Hackett to Tabberer, and then to Peat?

I don’t know who William Hackett is. I’m almost positive he is not from the Tabberer side, - I have them quite  along way back, but may be connected to George Peat somehow - he is one of my brick walls - I can’t find his birth, about 1721.
Would it be too much of an assumption, given the ‘for divers other good and valuable causes…etc’ phrase to think he was somehow related ? George Peat had married William Tabberer’s daughter 4 years before this, and had 2 little daughters by the time this indenture was written. I can’t find any other children born to him.
William Hackett died 1763, so this Indenture written just 5 years before his death, but can’t see a will for him on FindMyPast, which may have cleared things up!

Any help gratefully received

[KGarrad]

First off, the Fine (as used in conveyancing) is an amicable composition or agreement of a suit, either actual or fictitious, by leave of the court, by which lands in question become, or are acknowledged to be,  the right of one of the parties.

The party who parted with the land , by acknowledging the right of the other, was said to levy the fine, and was called the "cognizor" or "conuser", while the part who recovered  or received the estate was termed the "cognizee" or "conusee", and the fine was said to be levied to him.

A "Fine sur cognizance de droit come ceo que il ad de son done" was a fine upon acknowledgment of the right of the cognizee as that which he hath  the gift of the cognizor. By this deforciant acknowledged in court a former feoffment, or gift,  in possession to have been made by him to the plaintiff.

So, it was a legal means of passing rights to land, from one person to another.
As such, it uses the rich language of "legalese"!

[goldie61]

Thanks KGarrad.
This is pretty much what it said on the British History site, and I understand it was the means to convey land.
But there is more than one person 'of the first party' in the Indenture, who seem to have a secondary transaction going within the fine sur cognizance from the 'second party'. Don't they?