Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning to assemble or to array. In historical legal usage, arramir referred to the act of mustering or gathering, particularly in the context of assembling men or forces. The term appears in medieval legal records and glossaries but did not develop into a term of sustained doctrinal significance in the common law tradition.
Note: Burrill's entry conflates two distinct headwords — ARRAMIR and ARRAS — under a single passage. These are separate terms requiring separate treatment. ARRAS (also Arra) is a Spanish law term referring to a husband's donation to his wife by reason of marriage, roughly analogous to a jointure or donation propter nuptias. ARRAMIR, by contrast, carries the simpler procedural sense of assembling. Researchers should not treat the Spanish law definition as belonging to ARRAMIR.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research hazard here is the conflation Burrill himself introduces by running ARRAMIR and ARRAS together in a single compressed entry. A researcher scanning Burrill quickly may incorrectly attribute the Spanish matrimonial property definition to ARRAMIR rather than to the separate headword ARRAS. This matters in two directions: a researcher studying medieval assembly procedures may pick up an inapplicable matrimonial gloss, and a researcher studying Spanish or civil law matrimonial property may overlook the correct headword.
ARRAMIR itself appears infrequently in the Law Mind corpus and in historical legal literature generally. Its practical significance lies less in substantive doctrine than in paleographic and glossary work — it surfaces in medieval rolls and Year Book marginalia where Latin and Law French terms for mustering or array appear. Researchers working on military tenure, feudal obligation, or medieval administrative procedure may encounter the term as a variant or cognate of array-related terminology.
The term should be distinguished from the procedurally significant ARRAY (as in the array of a jury or the challenge to the array), which has an extensive common law history. ARRAMIR is an antecedent or cognate form, not a synonym with equivalent doctrinal weight.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary shelf source acknowledging ARRAMIR, and his treatment is minimal: a single gloss ("to assemble") attributed to Kelham's dictionary of Norman French. Kelham's Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language (1779) is the underlying authority Burrill relies upon, making Kelham the original source for this definition in the English legal dictionary tradition.
No substantive elaboration appears in other standard historical dictionaries. Jacob's Law Dictionary, Tomlin's Law Dictionary, and Bouvier's Law Dictionary do not carry ARRAMIR as an independent headword, suggesting the term was recognized as a peripheral glossary entry rather than a term in active legal use even by the time these later dictionaries were compiled.
The Burrill entry is notable for what it omits: no procedural context, no illustrative citation to a writ or roll, and no connection to the developed doctrine of jury array or military muster. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as a bare linguistic gloss and look to primary medieval sources — plea rolls, Exchequer records, or Year Books — for any substantive use of the term in context.