— Also termed (in Scots law) stellionate. Cf. COZENING.
“STELLIONATE… is a term applied, in the law of Scotland, either to any crime which, though indictable, goes under no general denomination, and is punishable arbitrarily, or to any civil delinquency of which fraud is an ingredient. Those, e.g., who grant double conveyances of the same subject, are guilty of this crime … and are punishable arbitrarily in their persons and goods, besides becoming infamous.” William Bell, Bell’s Dictionary and Digest of the Law of Scotland 940 (George Watson ed., 1882).
“Though pignus and hypothec are almost different names for the same thing, there were differences. Hypothec was used mainly for land, which cannot be removed. A thing could be pledged only to one, but successive hypothecs might be created over a thing. There was no fraud in this but it was the offence of stellionatus to give a hypothec without declaring existing hypothecs.” W.W. Buckland, A Manual of Roman Private Law 355 (2d ed. 1953).
