Definition
A term found in old English records denoting the customs impost of England levied upon merchandise — that is, a duty or tax charged on goods passing into or out of the realm. The term is Latin in form and appears in medieval administrative and fiscal records as a shorthand reference to the English customs charge, distinguishing it from other regional or foreign impositions. It is not a term of modern law and survives only in historical legal documents and the sources that annotate them.
Common Confusion
Anglie should not be confused with the broader Latin phrase "leges Angliae" (the laws of England) or similar Latin constructions using "Anglia" (the Latin name for England). The word here functions not as a general reference to English law or English identity but as a specific fiscal and administrative label attached to a customs duty. Researchers encountering "Anglie" in isolation in old records should read it in context alongside references to merchandise, ports, or toll schedules before assuming a broader constitutional or legal-systemic meaning.
Why It Matters in Research
The principal research value of this term is navigational: if you encounter "Anglie" in a medieval or early modern English record, you are almost certainly looking at a customs, excise, or toll document rather than a pleading, deed, or statute. The term signals entry into a specialized body of fiscal and administrative sources — port books, customs rolls, exchequer records — rather than the common law tradition.
Two embedded Latin maxims in Black's entry provide important collateral context for researchers working in this area. The first — "Mercis appellatio ad res mobiles tantum pertinet" (the term 'merchandise' belongs to movable things only) — confirms that the impost applied exclusively to movable goods, not land or immovable property. The second — "Mercis appellatione homines non contineri" (men are not included under the denomination of 'merchandise') — has obvious significance for the history of slavery and unfree labor in English legal thought, establishing that human beings were formally excluded from the legal category of merchandise, at least in the Roman law tradition from which these maxims derive (Digest 50.16.66 and 50.16.207).
Researchers should note that Black's relies on Cowell's Interpreter for this term. John Cowell's Interpreter (1607) is a key secondary source for early modern English legal vocabulary, but it is itself a period document with interpretive limitations. When tracing the administrative history of English customs duties, primary sources such as the exchequer and pipe rolls, or the statute 3 Edward I (Statute of Westminster I, 1275) establishing wool customs, will be more authoritative than dictionary derivations.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary is the sole source here, and its treatment is brief. The entry does little more than identify the term's appearance in old records, attribute a definition to Cowell, and append two Roman law maxims from Justinian's Digest. This is a pattern Black's follows for obsolete fiscal terminology: define narrowly, cite a secondary glossarist, and anchor the surrounding legal concepts in Roman law maxims.
The reliance on the Digest maxims is historically significant. English customs law developed through a mixture of royal prerogative, parliamentary statute, and common law borrowing; the citation of Roman law authority here reflects the scholarly conventions of early legal lexicography rather than the direct operative force of Roman law in English customs administration. Researchers should treat the Digest citations as illustrative of the conceptual framework rather than as binding authority in English law.
No major competing historical dictionary entry for this specific term has been identified in the standard secondary literature. Its obsolescence is essentially complete — modern customs law and tariff law use entirely different vocabulary.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to English legal history. It has no recognized equivalent or surviving use in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions. Researchers working in comparative customs history should look for analogous impost terminology in the records of other medieval kingdoms rather than expecting a direct cognate.