Definition
To affeer is to fix, assess, or liquidate an amount — most commonly the sum owed under an amercement — that was initially left uncertain or discretionary. The term operates in two distinct procedural contexts in English law:
1. To affeer an amercement: To determine and establish the precise monetary sum that a person amerced in a court-leet must pay. Because amercements were imposed in variable, discretionary amounts, affeering was the process by which that amount was brought to a certain, enforceable figure. The persons who performed this function were called affeerers.
2. To affeer an account: To confirm an account on oath before the Exchequer, giving it the force of an authenticated and settled record.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To assess or reduce an arbitrary penalty or amercement to a precise sum; to fix the market value of. Also, to confirm or assure.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To confirm; to assure (noted as obsolete). Also, to assess or reduce an arbitrary penalty or amercement to a certain and reasonable sum.
The ordinary language usage tracks the legal meaning more closely than is typical, but there is a meaningful gap. Common usage suggests affeering involves reduction — bringing a penalty down to a reasonable level. The legal usage is more neutral: affeering is simply the act of fixing the amount with certainty, whether that results in reduction or not. The emphasis in legal procedure is on liquidation and certainty, not necessarily moderation.
Common Confusion
Affeer is sometimes conflated with the imposition of an amercement, but the two are distinct acts. An amercement is the penalty itself — the sanction levied by the court. Affeering is the subsequent, separate step of determining what that penalty actually amounts to in money. A person could be amerced by the court and then have that amercement affeered by designated affeerers. The court leet imposed; the affeerers quantified.
Affeer should also be distinguished from the modern concept of assessment in taxation or damages. Contemporary assessment involves formal statutory procedures. Affeering was a feature of archaic English local court practice, largely obsolete as a live procedural concept.
Why It Matters in Research
Affeer is a term of art belonging almost exclusively to the historical record of English local court procedure, primarily the court leet and exchequer practice. Researchers will encounter it in primary sources and treatises dating from the medieval period through the eighteenth century; it does not appear as a functioning procedural term in modern American or English law.
Several research traps apply. First, sources that discuss amercements without explaining affeering may leave the impression that an amercement was always a fixed sum — it was not. Understanding affeering clarifies that the amount was often indeterminate at the moment of imposition and required a separate proceeding. Second, the Exchequer usage (affeering an account) is distinct from the court leet usage and may appear in sources without any cross-reference between the two meanings; researchers in fiscal or revenue history should not assume the term always concerns penalties. Third, Webster's 1913 and Blackstone's usage suggest affeering involved moderating or reducing a penalty — this reading reflects a normative aspect of the affeerers' function (ensuring the sum was reasonable) but should not be read to mean that affeering was an appeals process or a formal mitigation procedure in the modern sense.
Corpus connections: The term appears in close proximity to AMERCEMENT, COURT LEET, AFFEERER, and PRESENTMENT in historical sources. Researchers working on English local governance, manorial records, or early common law procedure will find affeering discussed in Blackstone's Commentaries, Coke, and the secondary literature on court leet jurisdiction.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Bouvier's are in full agreement, almost verbatim. All three define affeer as meaning to assess, liquidate, or fix in amount, and all identify both the court leet (amercement) and exchequer (account) applications. All three cite the same trio of authorities: Cowell, Blount, and Spelman — the principal seventeenth-century English legal antiquarians and lexicographers. The uniformity across these sources signals a settled, if narrow, historical definition rather than a term whose meaning was contested.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: none of the three source dictionaries describes the procedural mechanics of how affeering was actually conducted — who the affeerers were, how they were appointed, or what standards governed their determination. Researchers needing that procedural depth must look beyond the dictionary shelf to Blackstone, Coke, or dedicated studies of court leet practice. Webster's 1913 is useful here for supplying the Blackstone reference, which connects affeering to judicial moderation of penalties, a dimension the law dictionaries omit.
Jurisdictional Note
Affeer as a live legal procedure is English in origin and has no meaningful American counterpart. It is not a term that migrated into U.S. practice. Researchers in American legal history will encounter it only in materials drawing on English sources or in comparative discussions of early colonial court procedures that borrowed from English local court models.