A legal writ or action in feudal property law used when a tenant failed to pay rent for a certain period, allowing the landlord to reclaim the property.
From Latin cessavit meaning 'he has ceased,' derived from cessare meaning 'to cease.' This legal term referred specifically to the cessation of rent payments that triggered property recovery procedures.
Cessavit is a perfect example of how Latin legal language immortalized everyday problems—when tenants stopped paying rent in medieval times, lawyers literally wrote 'he has ceased [paying]' and boom, the landlord could take everything back!
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