Cape

CAPE, English law. A judicial writ touching a plea of lands and tenements. The writs which bear this name are of two kinds, namely, cape magnum, or grand, cape, and cape parvum, or petit cape. The petit cape, is so called, not so much on account of the smallness of the writ, as of the letter. Fleta, lib. 6, c. 55, Sec. 40. For the difference between the form and the use of these writs, see 2 Wms. Saund. Rep. 45, c, d; and Fleta, ubi sup.