Definition
A Latin term from medieval legal usage meaning appraised or valued, particularly as applied to goods or commodities that are vendible — that is, offered or suitable for sale — in a market. The term describes the condition of goods that have been formally assessed or priced for purposes of market transaction. It appears in historical English legal records as a descriptor of merchantable goods that have undergone some form of valuation, whether by official assay, market custom, or appraisement.
---
Why It Matters in Research
Afforatus is an archaic Latin term confined almost entirely to medieval and early modern English legal records. Researchers are unlikely to encounter it in primary sources outside of market regulations, borough charters, assize records, or treatises on trade and valuation law. Its appearance in a source signals context involving market courts, toll regulations, or official price controls — the kinds of instruments that governed trade in English towns and boroughs from the medieval period through the early modern era.
The chief research trap is confusion with superficially similar Latin terms. Afforatus is narrowly a term of appraisement and market valuation; it should not be imported into discussions of land law or criminal procedure where other Latin terms govern.
Black's Law Dictionary in both its first and second editions traces the term to Blount — Thomas Blount's Nomo-Lexicon: A Law Dictionary (1670) — which is the authoritative original source for this entry. Researchers working with Blount directly will find this term in its older orthographic form and should account for variant spelling in manuscript and printed sources from that period.
Because the term is purely descriptive of a procedural or commercial fact (that goods have been valued), it carries no independent legal consequence in modern law and has no contemporary statutory or common law analog. Its value to researchers is entirely historical and interpretive.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary provide nearly identical entries, each consisting of a single sentence tracing to Blount. The first edition reads: "Appraised or valued, as things vendible in a market. Blount." The second edition preserves the same definition without elaboration or expansion.
The brevity of the entry in both editions reflects the term's narrow and archaic status even at the time of Black's compilation. There is no disagreement between the two editions, and neither offers jurisdictional nuance or procedural context beyond the single-sentence gloss. The historical dictionaries essentially function here as a relay from Blount rather than an independent analytical source.
Researchers should consult Blount's Nomo-Lexicon directly for the fullest historical treatment. Blount's 1670 dictionary was a foundational source for early English legal lexicography, and many terms appearing in Black's earliest editions, particularly archaic Latin and Norman French terms, derive from Blount without additional intermediary authority.
---
Jurisdictional Note
Afforatus is a term rooted in the legal customs and market law of medieval and early modern England. It has no recognized usage in American law and does not appear in the legal traditions of civil law jurisdictions under this form. Researchers encountering it should treat it as specific to English legal history.
---