ADSALLIRE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ADSALLIREAuthored

The Law Mind • 616 words

Definition

A Latin term of medieval and civil law meaning to assault or to leap upon. Used in legal records to describe the physical act of attacking another person, particularly in the context of criminal proceedings or actions involving violent conduct. The term appears in Latin legal pleadings and records as a verb form denoting the commission of an assault.

Note: The Burrill entry referenced in source material appears to contain a transcription or compilation error, conflating ADSALLIRE with ADSCRIBERE and related terms. These are distinct Latin legal terms. ADSALLIRE derives from ad- (upon) and salire (to leap, to spring), yielding the sense of leaping upon or falling upon a person — the physical act underlying an assault. ADSCRIBERE, by contrast, concerns writing and subscription. Researchers should treat these as separate entries and be alert to digitization or copying errors in historical sources that may present them as a single entry.

Common Confusion

ADSALLIRE / ADSCRIBERE: These terms are entirely unrelated in meaning and derivation. ADSALLIRE concerns physical assault; ADSCRIBERE concerns written additions and subscriptions to legal instruments. The corruption in the Burrill corpus entry presents them as connected. They are not. Any research note treating these as related or overlapping terms should be treated with suspicion.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is primarily a trap for researchers rather than a term with independent doctrinal weight. Its chief significance is negative: encountering it in a Latin legal record signals assault-type conduct, and misreading it — or encountering a corrupted source that conflates it with ADSCRIBERE — can send a researcher in an entirely wrong direction.

Researchers working in medieval English plea rolls, ecclesiastical court records, or civil law documents transcribed from Latin will encounter verb forms from this root. Because Latin legal vocabulary was not standardized across scribal traditions, spelling variants (assalire, adsalire, assallire) appear in the same corpora. Cross-referencing with the English common law term ASSAULT and its Latin equivalents is essential when tracing the history of assault doctrine through Latinized records.

The Burrill entry is a cautionary example of source degradation in historical legal dictionaries: the entry for ADSALLIRE has been run together with the entry for ADSCRIBERE, likely the result of a printing or transcription error in the original edition or a downstream digitization failure. Researchers relying solely on Burrill without verification may incorrectly conclude that ADSALLIRE has something to do with written instruments, witnesses, or annexation — it does not.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's Law Dictionary is the only source in the Law Mind corpus covering this term, and as noted above, the relevant entry is corrupted. The text as preserved conflates ADSALLIRE with ADSCRIBERE (a term concerning written additions, codicils, and subscription to instruments) under what appears to be a single garbled entry. Burrill provides no independent, clean definition of ADSALLIRE as a discrete headword.

Other historical Latin legal dictionaries — including Du Cange's Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis — treat assalire and its variants as terms denoting physical attack or assault, consistent with the etymology. Thomas Blount's Nomo-Lexicon (1670) and Spelman's Glossarium Archaeologicum address related assault vocabulary in medieval Latin legal records. Researchers needing authoritative treatment of this term should consult those sources directly rather than relying on the Burrill entry as preserved in the Law Mind corpus.

Jurisdictional Note

As a Latin term of the civil law tradition, ADSALLIRE is not jurisdiction-specific in the modern sense. Its relevance is historical, appearing in records from civilian jurisdictions, ecclesiastical courts, and medieval English courts conducting proceedings in Latin. Modern assault doctrine in any jurisdiction does not use this term.

ADSALLIREmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Assalire. L. Lat. [from Cod. ADSCRIBERE, Ascribere. Lat. [from ad, to, and scribere, to write.] In the civil law. To add in writing, or by writing; as by a codicil. Dig. 28. 4. 5. To add one's name to an instrument as a witness. Dig. 28. 2. 22. 4. Cod. 8. 38. 14. pr. To annex or bind to, in writing. See Adscriptus. ADSCRIPTUS, Ascriptus. Lat. [from adscribere, q. v.] In the civil law. Added, joined, annexed or bound by or in writing; enrolled, registered; united by writing or enrollment; united, joined, annexed, bound to, generally. Servus colonæ adscriptus; a slave annexed to an estate as a cultivator. Dig. 19. 2. 54. 2. Fundus adscriptus; an estate bound to, or burdened with a duty. Cod. 11. 2. 3. ADSCRIPTUS GLEBÆ. Lat. In the civil law. Annexed to the soil. Slaves, in the middle ages, were adscripti glebæ, and were conveyed by sale, together with the farm or estate to which they belonged. 1 Robertson's Charles V. Appendix, note ix. In Scotland, as late as the reign of George III. laborers in collieries and salt works were bound to the coal-pit or saltwork in which they were engaged, in a manner similar to that of the adscripti of the Romans. Bell's Dict. voc. Coaliers and Salters. ADSCRIPTITIUS, Adscripticius, Ascriptitius. Lat. [from adscriptus, q. v.] In the civil law. United, annexed, or bound to. Adscriptitii, (Gr. ivanóypapoi,) were a class of cultivators who were annexed to the land, without the power of leaving it, and whose earnings or peculium belonged to their owners or masters, (ròis deonórats ȧvnket.) Cod. 11. 47. 19. There was very little difference between them and slaves. See Cod. 11. 47. 21. And see further as to their condition. Id. 23, 24. Nov. 54. Const. Imp. Just. 2. ADSCRIPTITII GLEBÆ. Lat. In old English law. Annexed, bound or adstricted to the soil; employed in cultivating it, and in performing other rural services for