Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning "goes," "went," or "gone." Derived from the Law French verb *aler* (to go), *alast* appears in early English legal records and pleadings as a verb form used to describe movement or departure. It has no independent substantive legal meaning of its own; its significance is entirely grammatical and contextual within Law French legal texts.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *alast* in medieval or early modern English legal manuscripts, plea rolls, or Year Books should treat it as a functional verb rather than a term of art. Its presence signals movement or departure of a party, animal, goods, or other subject — context determines which. Because Law French verbs were often conjugated inconsistently across scribal traditions and time periods, variant spellings (*alast*, *alest*, *alist*) may appear in the same corpus. Do not assume variant spellings indicate different meanings.
The primary research trap is misreading *alast* as a substantive term or confusing it with similarly spelled English words. A researcher unfamiliar with Law French grammar may skip past it or misinterpret a passage's meaning entirely. When transcribing or abstracting early plea roll entries, accurate rendering of motion verbs like *alast* is essential to understanding whether a party had appeared, fled, or been discharged.
This term belongs to a family of Law French motion verbs — including *aler*, *alloit*, and *alast* — that recur throughout medieval English legal records. Understanding the verb family as a unit is more useful than treating any single form in isolation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical dictionary entry for this term, defining it concisely as "goes; went; gone" and attributing its derivation to the Law French *aler*. Burrill cross-references that root verb, suggesting researchers consult the *aler* entry for fuller treatment of the verb family. The entry is brief by design: Burrill correctly recognized that *alast* is a grammatical form, not a legal concept, and treated it accordingly.
No other major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — including Jacob's Law Dictionary, Tomlin's Law Dictionary, or Black's — carry a dedicated entry for *alast*, which reflects its status as a term of linguistic rather than doctrinal significance. The absence of entries in later dictionaries tracks the decline of Law French in English legal practice; by the time the major nineteenth-century dictionaries were compiled, Law French had been formally abolished in English courts (1731) and the term had passed entirely out of active use.
Jurisdictional Note
*Alast* is specific to the Law French tradition of English common law. It will not appear in civil law, Scots law, or American legal sources except as a quoted fragment from earlier English materials.