Definition
A Law French term meaning "to put an end to" or "to conclude." In historical legal usage, *affiner* appears primarily as a procedural or transactional verb signifying the termination or settlement of a matter. It is closely associated with the noun forms *affines* and *affinis*, which denote persons related by marriage (as opposed to blood), and with the broader cluster of affinity-related concepts in civil and canon law.
The term is encountered almost exclusively in historical legal texts and medieval English and French legal proceedings. It has no surviving operational role in modern common law or statutory practice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No standard entry. The English word "affine" survives in mathematics (affine geometry, affine transformation) and in rare genealogical usage to mean a relation by marriage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately listed. Webster's treats "affinity" as the governing English form, covering both the relational sense (connection by marriage) and the broader sense of natural attraction or resemblance.
The legal term *affiner* is not cognate with the mathematical or genealogical uses. Its procedural meaning — to put an end to — bears no relationship to the relational meaning carried by *affines*. Researchers encountering either form in a historical source should determine from context whether the text intends the verbal sense (termination) or the nominal sense (persons connected by marriage).
Common Confusion
*Affiner*, *affines*, and *affinis* appear in close proximity in Burrill and in the sources he cites, and are easily conflated. They are distinct:
- *Affiner* (verb): to conclude, terminate, or put an end to.
- *Affines* (noun, plural): persons related by marriage; also, in a secondary sense drawn from Roman law, neighbors occupying adjoining lands.
- *Affinis* (noun/adjective, singular): related by marriage; the root form from which *affines* derives.
The dual meaning of *affines* — marital relations and neighboring landowners — itself creates interpretive risk. Both senses are attested in the Digest and in Fleta, and the applicable meaning depends entirely on the legal context (family law vs. property or boundary disputes).
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval English legal records, Year Books, or early common law treatises will encounter *affiner* and its cognates in two distinct contexts that require different analytical frameworks.
First, when *affiner* appears as a verb in procedural text, it signals the conclusion or settlement of a proceeding — a function analogous to what later practice would call a release, discharge, or final order. Mistaking it for a relational term will send research in the wrong direction entirely.
Second, the noun cluster *affines/affinis* feeds directly into the law of affinity, which governed marriage prohibitions, competency of witnesses, and challenges to jurors in both ecclesiastical and common law courts. Fleta's usage — "qui neutri parti sunt affines," meaning persons related to neither party by marriage — appears in a juror qualification context. This jurisdictional and procedural significance of affinity persists well into the modern period in rules governing judicial disqualification and witness competency, even though the Law French vocabulary has long since dropped away.
The connection to neighboring landowners (*affines* in the property sense) is a Roman law survival with limited common law resonance, but it appears in sources researchers may consult when tracing boundary dispute procedure or the actio finium regundorum.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the principal English-language legal dictionary source for *affiner*. His entry is brief: he defines the term by reference to Kelham's *Norman-French Dictionary*, which is the standard authority for Law French vocabulary. Burrill then pivots immediately to *affines*, treating the two as adjacent entries rather than analyzing the verbal form in depth.
Burrill's citation pattern is instructive. For the marital-relation sense of *affines*, he cites Justinian's *Institutes* (1.10.6) and Stephen's *Commentaries* (2d ed., vol. 2, p. 285), grounding the term in civilian sources. For the juror-qualification usage, he quotes Fleta (lib. 4, c. 5, §4). For the neighboring-landowner sense, he cites the Digest (10.1.12), the locus of the Roman boundary action. This multi-source pattern reflects the term's genuinely hybrid origins — part civilian inheritance, part English common law adoption through ecclesiastical and procedural channels.
What Burrill does not do is trace the procedural sense of *affiner* (to put an end to) beyond the bare attribution to Kelham. Researchers needing more on the verbal form should consult Kelham directly and, for broader Law French context, Tomlin's *Law Dictionary* and the glossaries appended to the older Year Book editions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Marriage — Capacity to Marry (Age, Consanguinity, Affinity), The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia