Definition
In feudal law, a second or repeated summons issued by a lord calling upon his inferiors, vassals, or feudal tenants to join him — typically for military service — addressed specifically to those who had failed to respond to or neglected the first summons. The arrier ban was not an initial call to service but a follow-up demand, carrying the implication of prior default. It functioned as both a renewed command and a form of compulsion directed at those already bound by feudal obligation.
The term is closely associated with the broader feudal military system in which lords held the power to summon those beneath them in the feudal hierarchy. The arrier ban was subordinate in character to the ban (the primary general summons), targeting the lower tiers of the feudal structure — the inferiors and vassals of the lord — rather than peers or equals.
To be distinguished from aribannum, a related but distinct feudal concept referring to the general royal proclamation or ban with its associated fine for non-compliance.
Common Confusion
Arrier ban is frequently run together with two adjacent terms that appear in the same feudal vocabulary. First, the ban — the initial general summons to military assembly — precedes the arrier ban; the arrier ban is by definition the second call, presupposing a first that was neglected. Second, aribannum (also rendered heribannum) refers to the royal penalty or fine imposed for failure to answer the military summons, not the summons itself. Researchers encountering these terms in proximity in feudal sources should treat them as distinct instruments serving different functions within the same system of military obligation.
Why It Matters in Research
Arrier ban is an archival term — it appears in historical legal sources, feudal charters, and secondary glosses on medieval law, not in modern statutes or case reports. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively when working with materials on feudal tenure, medieval military obligation, or the history of compulsory service.
The most important navigational point is the distinction between this term and structurally similar feudal vocabulary. In sources organized alphabetically, arrier ban, arriere fief, aribannum, and arriere vassal appear in close proximity, and early dictionaries sometimes treat them cursorily. Bouvier's entry, for instance, folds arrier ban and arriere fief into a single passage, which can obscure the functional difference between a summons mechanism (arrier ban) and a tenure category (arriere fief). Rapalje & Lawrence present the same pairing. Researchers should read these entries as a cluster rather than treating each term as fully self-contained.
The term has no live application in modern Anglo-American law. Its research relevance is historical and comparative — primarily useful in the context of English feudal history prior to the gradual dissolution of feudal tenure, formalized in England by the Tenures Abolition Act of 1660. Any encounter with arrier ban in a post-seventeenth-century source is almost certainly backward-looking.
Corpus researchers should also note that variant spellings (arrière ban, arriereban, arrierban) appear across sources, reflecting the term's French origin and inconsistent anglicization. Searches limited to a single spelling may miss relevant passages.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: arrier ban is a second summons, addressed to those who neglected the first, directed at the inferiors or vassals of the lord. The agreement is essentially verbatim across Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's, with Rapalje & Lawrence adding slight elaboration ("repeated summons or proclamation") that makes the iterative character of the mechanism marginally clearer.
All four sources trace the term to Spelman's Glossarium — specifically Henry Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum (published posthumously, 1664), a standard reference for feudal Latin and law-French terminology. This common citation suggests the dictionaries are drawing on the same scholarly lineage rather than independent primary sources, which limits the depth of their entries. None of the dictionary sources provides a worked historical example or connects the term to specific documentary evidence beyond Spelman.
Bouvier's is notable for flagging the distinction from aribannum, a useful warning that the other sources omit. Black's 2nd edition reproduces the Black's 1st edition text without material change. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is the most economical but adds the phrase "calling the feudal tenants to join their lord," which frames the summons slightly more concretely than the other entries.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: none addresses the procedural consequences of neglecting the arrier ban, the geographic variation in how the mechanism operated across different feudal jurisdictions, or the relationship between the arrier ban and the arrière-ban as used in French military history (where the term had a somewhat broader meaning encompassing the general levy of secondary vassals). Researchers working on comparative feudal law or French legal history should supplement these entries with specialized historical scholarship.
Jurisdictional Note
Arrier ban is a term of feudal law common to England and the Continent, but its precise application varied by jurisdiction and era. In English legal history, the feudal summons mechanisms underlying the arrier ban were effectively abolished with the end of feudal tenure in the seventeenth century. In French legal and military history, the arrière-ban retained relevance longer as part of the system of royal military levies. Researchers should not assume the English and French usages are interchangeable.