Bond/Defeasance

Description

A bond is a system put in place to balance requests for outstanding payments to be made or established between an obligor and obligee that must be paid under threat of varying punishments. British historian R.R. Postan has written articles concerning bonds as a method of witnessing debt and obligation between parties. He also draws attention to the importance of legitimizing a bond through proper address and seals.
A defeasance overrides another previously binding deed (thereby “defeating” it), and is commonly used to cancel a bond or loan once the agreed-upon amount has been paid, rendering the object sole property of its purchaser. For this reason, bonds and defeasances from the later Middle Ages are often found together. Joseph Biancalana notes that sometimes, often in the case of penal bonds, a conditional defeasance would be written on the back of the bond itself, though this practice did not originate until the 1340s, near the end of the time period of the Atlas of a Medieval Life project.