Definition
An obsolete Law French term meaning "August" — the eighth month of the calendar year. Used in historical legal documents, pleadings, and records written in Law French to designate dates or time periods falling within that month.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research value of this term is recognition: encountering *aernovel* in a medieval or early modern legal record without knowing its meaning will produce a misread date. Law French calendrical vocabulary was not standardized in spelling, and variant forms appear across manuscripts and printed abridgments. A researcher transcribing or indexing historical pleadings, court rolls, or conveyances should flag this term as a date marker and cross-check the document's year against the Julian or Gregorian calendar in use at the time. Documents using Law French for months may also use regnal year dating rather than anno Domini dating, compounding the interpretive challenge. This term has no operational legal meaning in any modern jurisdiction but remains a necessary entry for anyone working in pre-modern common law records.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary (the sole shelf source covering this term) provides a minimal but reliable entry: *aernovel*, Law French, meaning August, with attribution to Kelham's *Glossary of Norman and Old French Words* — itself a standard reference for Law French legal vocabulary. Burrill's entry does no more than define and source the term, which is appropriate given its purely calendrical function. The Kelham attribution is useful because Kelham's glossary provides additional variant spellings and contextual examples that Burrill does not reproduce. Researchers who need to trace variant forms of this term across manuscript sources should go directly to Kelham rather than relying on the Burrill entry alone.