1. Int’l law. An act of force by which, during a war, a belligerent occupies territory within an enemy country with the intention of extending its sovereignty over that territory. • That intention is usu. explained in a proclamation or some other legal act.
2. Hist. The acquisition of land by any method other than descent, esp. by purchase.
3. Hist. The land so acquired. Cf. PURCHASE(2).
“What we call purchase, perquisitio, the feudists called conquest, conquaestus, or conquisitio: both denoting any means of acquiring an estate out of the common course of inheritance. And this is still the proper phrase in the law of Scotland: as it was, among the Norman jurists, who stiled the first purchasor (that is, he who first brought the estate into the family which at present owns it) the conqueror or conquereur. Which seems to be all that was meant by the appellation which was given to William the Norman, when his manner of ascending the throne of England was, in his own and his successors’ charters, and by the historians of the times, entitled conquaestus, and himself conquaestor or conquisitor; signifying, that he was the first of his family who acquired the crown of England, and from whom therefore all future claims by descent must be derived: though now, from our disuse of the feodal sense of the word, together with the reflection on his forcible method of acquisition, we are apt to annex the idea of victory to this name of conquest or conquisition; a title which, however just with regard to the crown, the conqueror never pretended with regard to the realm of England; nor, in fact, ever had.” 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 242–43 (1766).
