Treasure trove
A treasure trove is an amount of money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, where the treasure seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable. An archaeological find of treasure trove is known as a hoard. The legal definition of what constitutes treasure trove and its treatment under law vary considerably from country to country, and from era to era.
The term is also often used metaphorically. Collections of articles published as a book are often titled Treasure Trove, as in A Treasure Trove of Science. This was especially fashionable for titles of children's books in the early- and mid-20th century.
Terminology
Treasure trove, sometimes rendered treasure-trove, literally means "treasure that has been found". The English term treasure trove was derived from tresor trové, the Anglo-French equivalent of the Latin legal term thesaurus inventus. In 15th-century English the Anglo-French term was translated as "treasure found", but from the 16th century it began appearing in its modern form with the French word trové anglicized as trovey, trouve or trove. The term wealth deposit has been proposed as a more accurate alternative.The term treasure trove is often used metaphorically to mean a "valuable find", and hence a source of treasure, or a reserve or repository of valuable things. Trove is often used alone to refer to the concept, the word having been reanalysed as a noun via folk etymology from an original Anglo-French adjective trové. Treasure trove is therefore akin to similar Anglo-French or Anglo-French-derived legal terms whereby a post-positive adjective in a noun phrase has been reanalysed as a compound noun phrase, as in court martial, force majeure, and Princess Royal. Phrases of this form are often used either with the etymologically correct plural form or as fully rederived plural forms. In the case of treasure trove, the typical plural form is almost always treasure troves, with treasures trove found mostly in historical or literary works.
History
Roman law
In Roman law, treasure trove was called thesaurus, and defined by the Roman jurist Paulus as "vetus quædam depositio pecuniæ, cujus non extat memoria, ut jam dominum non habeat". R. W. Lee, in his book The Elements of Roman Law, commented that this definition was "not quite satisfactory" as treasure was not confined to money, nor was there any abandonment of ownership. Under the emperors, if treasure was found on a person's own land or on sacred or religious land, the finder was entitled to keep it. However, if the treasure was found fortuitously, and not by deliberate search, on another person's land, half went to the finder and half to the owner of the land, who might be the emperor, the fiscus, the city, or some other proprietor. According to Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, as the feudal system spread over Europe and the prince was looked on as the ultimate owner of all lands, his right to the treasure trove became jus commune et quasi gentium in England, Germany, France, Spain and Denmark.An interpretation of Roman law regarding treasure trove makes an appearance in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. The Parable of the Hidden Treasure is told by Jesus of Nazareth to the crowds surrounding him and his disciples. In the parable, the treasure trove is hidden in a field, which is open country and anyone could conceivably discover something hidden in that location. It is also assumed that the present owner has no knowledge or memory of the treasure. The finder of the treasure concealed the discovery until he could raise capital to purchase the land. Selling all he had, the finder purchased the land and then unearthed the treasure, to which he was entitled as both finder and landowner. Jesus compared the kingdom of Heaven to the treasure, being of greater value than all a person's earthly wealth and a wise investment that not everyone understands at first.
England and Wales common law
It has been said that the concept of treasure trove in English law dates back to the time of Edward the Confessor. Under the common law, treasure trove was defined as gold or silver in any form, whether coin, plate or bullion, which had been hidden and rediscovered, and which no person could prove they owned. If the person who had hidden the treasure was known or discovered later, it belonged to him or her or persons claiming through him or her such as descendants. To be treasure trove, an object had to be substantially – that is, more than 50% – gold or silver.File:Sutton Hoo helmet 2016.png|thumb|left|The Sutton Hoo helmet, recovered in 1939. The Sutton Hoo find was not treasure trove. As it was a ship burial, there had been no intention to recover the objects later.
Treasure trove had to be hidden with animus revocandi, that is, an intention to recover it later. If an object was simply lost or abandoned, it belonged either to the first person who found it or to the landowner according to the law of finders, that is, legal principles concerning the finding of objects. For this reason, the objects found in 1939 at Sutton Hoo were determined not to be treasure trove; as the objects were part of a ship burial, there had been no intention to recover the buried objects later. The Crown had a prerogative right to treasure trove, and if the circumstances under which an object was found raised a prima facie presumption that it had been hidden, it belonged to the Crown unless someone else could show a better title to it. The Crown could grant its right to treasure trove to any person in the form of a franchise.
It was the duty of the finder, and indeed of anyone who had acquired knowledge of the matter, to report the finding of a potential treasure trove to the coroner of the district. Concealing a find was a misdemeanour punishable with fine and imprisonment. The coroner was required to hold an inquest with a jury to determine who were the finders or the persons suspected to be the finders, "and that may be well perceived where one liveth riotously and have done so of long time". Where there had been an apparent concealment of treasure trove the coroner's jury could investigate the title of the treasure to discover if it had been concealed from the supposed owner, but any such finding was not conclusive as the coroner generally had no jurisdiction to enquire into questions of title to the treasure between the Crown and any other claimant. If a person wished to assert title to the treasure, they had to bring separate court proceedings.
In the early 20th century, it became the practice of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to pay those finders who fully and promptly reported discoveries of treasure troves and handed them over to the proper authorities, the full antiquarian value of objects which were retained for national or other institutions such as museums. Objects not retained were returned to the finders.
The law regarding treasure trove was amended in 1996 so that these principles no longer hold.
Scottish common law
Under the common law of Scotland, the law of treasure trove was and still is a specialized application of the general rule governing bona vacantia – that is, objects that are lost, forgotten or abandoned. The rule is quod nullius est fit domini regis: "that which belongs to nobody becomes our Lord the King's ". The Crown in [|Scotland] has a prerogative right to treasure trove for it is one of the regalia minora, that is, property rights which the Crown may exercise as it pleases and which it may alienate. As the Scottish law of treasure trove on the matter has not changed, it is discussed in the "Present-day legal definitions" section below, under the subheading "Scotland".United States law
Many states in the U.S. enacted statutes that received English common law into their legal systems. For example, in 1863 the legislature of Idaho enacted a statute that made "the common law of England... the rule of decision in all courts" of the state. However, English common law principles of treasure trove were not applied in the U.S. Instead, courts applied rules relating to the finding of lost and ownerless items. The treasure trove rule was first given serious consideration by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1904 in a case involving boys who had discovered thousands of dollars in gold coins hidden in metal cans while cleaning out a henhouse. The Court wrongly believed that the rule operated in the same way as early rules that awarded possession – and, effectively, legal title as well – to innocent finders of items that had been hidden or concealed and the owners of which were unknown. By awarding the coins to the boys, the Court implied that finders were entitled to buried valuables, and that any claims by landowners should be disregarded.In subsequent years the legal position became unclear as a series of English and American cases decided that landowners were entitled to buried valuables. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court reconsidered the rule in 1908. The case before it involved three workers who had found coins while digging on their employer's land. The Court decided along the lines of the 1904 Oregon case and awarded the coins to the finders. For the next 30 years, the courts of a number of states, including Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin, applied this modified "treasure trove" rule, most recently in 1948. Since that time, however, the rule has fallen out of favour. Modern legal texts regard it as "a recognized, if not controlling, rule of decision", but one commentator has called it "a minority rule of dubious heritage that was misunderstood and misapplied in a few states between 1904 and 1948".