5 ms·

In the USA, our legal system comes partly from the old Anglo-Saxon system, and partly from the French-Norman system, along with a few other parts of this. A lot

In the USA, our legal system comes partly from the old Anglo-Saxon system, and partly from the French-Norman system, along with a few other parts of this. A lot of interesting and useful things come from this history. Specifically, regarding this case... The word fiefdom literally means "foot ground" in Anglo Saxon. That means your land (domain) is where you put your foot on the ground. Even if you claim ownership to some land, those claims can be in dispute if someone else's foot is on the ground, so to speak. To me it's always been so fascinating thinking about law, and the philosophy of law, in these very basic, raw terms. Like, from where does the law derive its power? To the anglo-saxons, the answer is from the ground, and that's why that aspect of the system is so obsessed with possession. Other cultures, like the Vikings, refined the ideas around tort law, like who should get paid how much if they're injured due to a fight. The Norman system brought about the idea of "writs". The idea that messages to and from the court (not a coincidence that it's the same word in English as what's used for royalty, whereas in a language like Italian it would something more like tribunal) need to use specific writs, almost like interfaces and API calls. This basically put an end to most instances of "self help". In other words, in most cases, you can not take the law into your own hands. You must abide by the system of writs. Even the word attorney comes from "at" and "tourney". Basically the guy you can pay who will go to the tournament, and fight instead of you before the court. Our whole legal system is informed by ancient concepts, and a lot of these ideas are not half bad. We would really do well to be reminded of that. If 3 years can go by without a bank even knowing about someone occupying a house they claim to own, someone living there in direct opposition to that claim, then from an Anglo-Saxon perspective they can't seriously claim to own it. To me that makes sense as well.

ajkjk 3y ago
Generally very interesting, but I looked up the bit about 'attorney' and Etymonline, at least, doesn't agree: https://www.etymonline.com/word/attorney https://www.etymonline.com/word/attorney. Thoughts?
- asimpletune 3y ago
  You know honestly I can’t be sure 100%, but that is what I was always taught in my “English as a language of law” class. I hesitate a little bc there’s always the possibility that I misremembered. That said, my memory is that it came from before the French, during the trial by combat days, where the wealthy could appoint someone to go on their behalf. Another datapoint for this is that a legal title that still exists today is esquire. However a “squire” is also the assistant to the knight who fights in the tournament. It’s totally possible that I’m mistaken about parts of this, especially the pre or post French use of the word, but I also think that a lot this knowledge is fairly esoteric and not captures well, even in today’s age, outside of experts. Not to cast shade on etymology.com at all. Just that it is a possibility. I see a lot of Ancient Greek/Roman stuff that comes up that’s either wrong or just naive, so. Idk. Glad that you think it’s interesting though! I have a book club if anyone’s interested https://r33d.org https://r33d.org We just started reading history of the Peloponnesian war by Thucydides :)
  - ajkjk 3y ago
    Although your book club sounds cool it's not clear.. how to join it? might want to have that front-and-center (if indeed you are hoping to get new members). Yeah I have no idea if etymonline is like, perfect or whatever. But the idea that it comes from 'atorné' does make quite a bit of sense also. The site is a treasure even if it's not perfect (although it has started to have obnoxious ads lately :( )
    - asimpletune 3y ago
      Thanks for the feedback. I’ll update the site to make it more clear.
  - seanhunter 3y ago
    You're right that esquire comes from squire, but "esquire" isn't a legal term of any kind. It's literally the title for someone who doesn't have any other noble title (Sir, Lord, etc) and it's entirely up to the choice of the person whether or not to have that as part of their form of address[1]. The idea that "esquire" has some legal significance is a "sovereign citizen" myth. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8160778.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8160778.stm
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dan-robertson 3y ago
The word fiefdom (and fief) dates to 17th century French. The older word used in England was fee (spelled various other ways) and it is unclear whether it comes from a Teutonic or Romance language or what the ultimate etymology is. There are some theories of it relating to an Old High German word for wages or a Teutonic word relating to feeding livestock. In general I think this kind of etymological approach to understanding the law is probably not so good.
- asimpletune 3y ago
  It was a long time ago since I studied this stuff (so I may have misremembered a few things), but I just want to say two things. The first is to just respond to the comment about etymological approach to understanding the law. The stuff I was saying earlier, all came from original source material. The class consisted of us reading line by line copies of manuscripts, with our professor translating as we go. So it was absolutely not an etymological approach to the law, and was based on direct translation of source material. The second point is that it was our professor who argued that fee (and fief, feof, <whatever>), the legal word that signifies possession, ultimately comes from where you put your foot, and he was an expert in law, Saxon and other dead languages. If that doesn’t correspond to whatever is on Wikipedia (or insert online source here) then either Wikipedia is incomplete, or I’m not perfectly representing what he said. Probably that I’m not perfectly representing what he said. Nonetheless, in the context of adverse possession, the larger point wasn’t about the etymology per se, but that historically, in England, you must physically possess your land in order to be able to claim that it’s really yours. This was the ultimate meaning of my professor’s point, and that point still remains. I don’t have any of those sources in front of me, but one day I’ll dig that stuff up and do a larger write up on these points.
  - dan-robertson 3y ago
    For sure I don’t want to argue what the current law/attitude is. I think that trying to work between the current law and the etymology of the words 1000+ years ago is a bad way of understanding the laws of today. I think one would do better to look over a wider range of historical sources. The source for what I wrote is the Oxford English Dictionary (the one that comes in 20 volumes) but it may be that that entry hasn’t been updated in a long time.

ajkjk 3y ago

Generally very interesting, but I looked up the bit about 'attorney' and Etymonline, at least, doesn't agree: https://www.etymonline.com/word/attorney https://www.etymonline.com/word/attorney. Thoughts?

asimpletune 3y ago
You know honestly I can’t be sure 100%, but that is what I was always taught in my “English as a language of law” class. I hesitate a little bc there’s always the possibility that I misremembered. That said, my memory is that it came from before the French, during the trial by combat days, where the wealthy could appoint someone to go on their behalf. Another datapoint for this is that a legal title that still exists today is esquire. However a “squire” is also the assistant to the knight who fights in the tournament. It’s totally possible that I’m mistaken about parts of this, especially the pre or post French use of the word, but I also think that a lot this knowledge is fairly esoteric and not captures well, even in today’s age, outside of experts. Not to cast shade on etymology.com at all. Just that it is a possibility. I see a lot of Ancient Greek/Roman stuff that comes up that’s either wrong or just naive, so. Idk. Glad that you think it’s interesting though! I have a book club if anyone’s interested https://r33d.org https://r33d.org We just started reading history of the Peloponnesian war by Thucydides :)
- ajkjk 3y ago
  Although your book club sounds cool it's not clear.. how to join it? might want to have that front-and-center (if indeed you are hoping to get new members). Yeah I have no idea if etymonline is like, perfect or whatever. But the idea that it comes from 'atorné' does make quite a bit of sense also. The site is a treasure even if it's not perfect (although it has started to have obnoxious ads lately :( )
  - asimpletune 3y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. I’ll update the site to make it more clear.
- seanhunter 3y ago
  You're right that esquire comes from squire, but "esquire" isn't a legal term of any kind. It's literally the title for someone who doesn't have any other noble title (Sir, Lord, etc) and it's entirely up to the choice of the person whether or not to have that as part of their form of address[1]. The idea that "esquire" has some legal significance is a "sovereign citizen" myth. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8160778.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8160778.stm

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dan-robertson 3y ago

The word fiefdom (and fief) dates to 17th century French. The older word used in England was fee (spelled various other ways) and it is unclear whether it comes from a Teutonic or Romance language or what the ultimate etymology is. There are some theories of it relating to an Old High German word for wages or a Teutonic word relating to feeding livestock. In general I think this kind of etymological approach to understanding the law is probably not so good.

asimpletune 3y ago
It was a long time ago since I studied this stuff (so I may have misremembered a few things), but I just want to say two things. The first is to just respond to the comment about etymological approach to understanding the law. The stuff I was saying earlier, all came from original source material. The class consisted of us reading line by line copies of manuscripts, with our professor translating as we go. So it was absolutely not an etymological approach to the law, and was based on direct translation of source material. The second point is that it was our professor who argued that fee (and fief, feof, <whatever>), the legal word that signifies possession, ultimately comes from where you put your foot, and he was an expert in law, Saxon and other dead languages. If that doesn’t correspond to whatever is on Wikipedia (or insert online source here) then either Wikipedia is incomplete, or I’m not perfectly representing what he said. Probably that I’m not perfectly representing what he said. Nonetheless, in the context of adverse possession, the larger point wasn’t about the etymology per se, but that historically, in England, you must physically possess your land in order to be able to claim that it’s really yours. This was the ultimate meaning of my professor’s point, and that point still remains. I don’t have any of those sources in front of me, but one day I’ll dig that stuff up and do a larger write up on these points.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  For sure I don’t want to argue what the current law/attitude is. I think that trying to work between the current law and the etymology of the words 1000+ years ago is a bad way of understanding the laws of today. I think one would do better to look over a wider range of historical sources. The source for what I wrote is the Oxford English Dictionary (the one that comes in 20 volumes) but it may be that that entry hasn’t been updated in a long time.