Definition
To add to, strengthen, or increase in force. In legal usage, the term appears almost exclusively in the phrase "afforce the assize," referring to an early English procedural device for resolving jury deadlock by adding jurors to the panel until twelve could be found who agreed on a verdict.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To reinforce a team or group with extra people.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To reinforce; to strengthen.
The common and legal meanings are closely aligned in a general sense, but the legal usage is narrower and procedurally specific. In law, afforce does not mean merely to add people to a group — it describes a defined historical mechanism for resolving jury disagreement in the context of the assize, a practice that no longer exists. The general English sense offers useful context but does not capture the doctrinal significance.
---
Common Confusion
AFFORCE / ENFORCE: These are not related legal terms, though both involve the idea of strengthening. Enforce refers to compelling compliance with a law or judgment. Afforce is an archaic term of English procedural practice with no modern enforcement meaning.
AFFORCE THE ASSIZE / ATTAINT: Researchers encountering early jury materials may encounter both concepts in proximity. Attaint was a proceeding to punish a jury for a false verdict; afforcing the assize was a device to produce a verdict in the first place. They address different problems — deadlock versus corrupt agreement — and should not be conflated.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archaic term encountered almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal sources. Researchers working in pre-seventeenth-century English legal history, the development of jury practice, or sources such as Bracton, Fleta, or Reeve's History of English Law will need to recognize this term in context.
Two important points for corpus navigation:
First, the practice of afforcing the assize represents an early solution to the unanimity requirement that later evolved into other forms of jury coercion — most notably the confinement of jurors without food, drink, or fire. Rapalje & Lawrence notes this evolution explicitly: the term shifted from describing the addition of new jurors to describing compulsory measures applied to an existing panel. Researchers tracing the history of jury unanimity or juror coercion should follow this conceptual thread across both meanings.
Second, this term will not appear in modern American legal sources, statutes, or case law. Its presence in a source is itself a signal that the source is historical or that the author is working in legal antiquarianism. Treat any modern invocation with caution.
The term also connects to the broader history of the assize — the early English jury institution — and its relationship to common law procedure. Researchers unfamiliar with the assize context should engage with that background before interpreting passages where afforce appears.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition: to add to, increase, or strengthen. Black's (2nd ed.) is the most instructive, quoting Bracton (fol. 185, 292a), Fleta (lib. 4, c. 9, § 2), and Reeve's History of English Law (vol. 2, p. 267) — the authoritative sources for tracing this practice. Rapalje & Lawrence adds useful texture by noting the procedural evolution from panel expansion to physical coercion as mechanisms for producing jury agreement, a development the Black's entries do not foreground as clearly.
None of the historical dictionaries address the American context, because there is none. The practice did not cross the Atlantic in operative form. Researchers should not assume that colonial or early American sources will use this term in a living procedural sense.
---
Jurisdictional Note
Afforce the assize is a term of exclusively English legal history. It has no operative meaning in American law and does not appear as a functioning doctrine in any U.S. jurisdiction. Researchers will encounter it only in historical or comparative contexts.
---