Definition
Assaltus is the Latin and Law Latin term used in medieval English legal records and feudal law texts to denote an assault — a threatening or hostile advance upon another person. The term appears principally in old English legal instruments, Latin treatises on feudal law, and early statutory materials, functioning as the formal Latin equivalent of the vernacular "assault" in pleadings and official documents of the period.
Note: Burrill's entry for assaltus contains a printing conflation with the distinct term assartum (also rendered essartum or exartum), which refers to the clearing of forest land for tillage — an entirely separate legal concept. The two terms are unrelated in meaning and were run together in some dictionary editions due to typesetting error or manuscript compression. Researchers should treat them as separate entries.
Common Confusion
Assaltus and assartum are visually and phonetically similar Latin legal terms that appear in close proximity in Burrill's and in some manuscript sources, and the conflation in Burrill's own entry compounds the risk of misreading. Assartum (also disbocatio) concerns the conversion of forest to arable land and carries entirely different legal consequences under forest law. Any source that appears to use assaltus in an agrarian or forestry context should be checked carefully — the word in view may be assartum. The reverse error also occurs: a forest law passage may be misread as concerning personal violence.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval English plea rolls, Latin charters, or feudal law commentaries will encounter assaltus as the standard Latin rendering of assault in formal instruments. Several research traps are worth noting.
First, the Burrill's entry itself is unreliable as a standalone reference because of the typographical or editorial conflation with assartum. Researchers who rely only on Burrill's may carry away a confused understanding of both terms. Cross-checking against Spelman's Glossarium, Du Cange's Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, or the original sources cited (Leges Edwardi Confessoris, Fleta) is advisable.
Second, the substantive content of assaultus/assaltus in medieval law differed from the modern common law doctrine of assault. Medieval assault in English law was often treated primarily as a breach of the king's peace and was addressed in criminal as well as civil contexts, with the emphasis on the physical act of battery frequently merged with or inseparable from the threatening advance. The clean common law distinction between assault (apprehension of harmful contact) and battery (the contact itself) was not consistently maintained in Latin pleading of the earlier period.
Third, because assaltus appears in feudal law commentary — notably in Zasius's commentary on the Libri Feudorum cited by Burrill — researchers using continental feudal sources alongside English materials should be aware that the term carried broadly consistent meaning across these traditions, though procedural consequences varied by jurisdiction and by the nature of the feudal relationship between the parties.
Fourth, the Leges Edwardi Confessoris citation (c. 12) places assaltus in the corpus of pre-Conquest and pseudo-pre-Conquest legal texts, which are themselves a contested source. Researchers relying on that citation should consult modern critical editions of the Leges, as the authenticity and dating of individual chapters have been disputed by legal historians.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical dictionary source available for this entry, and its treatment is compressed and editorially compromised by the conflation with assartum noted above. The useful content Burrill's provides is the identification of assaltus as the Latin of the feudists (citing Zasius), the reference to Leges Edwardi Confessoris c. 12 as a locus in English law, and the note that the term represents the Latin equivalent of the common English "assault." Beyond these data points, Burrill's does not elaborate on the substantive legal content of the term or its procedural context.
Spelman's Glossarium (cited within Burrill's for the adjacent assartum entry) is a more authoritative reference for Latin legal terminology of the medieval English period, and researchers seeking fuller treatment of assaltus in its documentary context should consult that work alongside Du Cange. Neither source is reproduced in Burrill's entry as it survives in the Law Mind corpus.
Jurisdictional Note
Assaltus as a Latin legal term functioned across English and continental feudal law contexts with broadly consistent meaning, but procedural consequences for assault varied significantly between English common law courts, ecclesiastical courts, and feudal jurisdictions on the continent. Researchers working in Scottish or Irish records should also note that Scots and Hiberno-Latin legal Latin used closely related terminology with locally distinct doctrinal content.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Assault; Leges Edwardi Confessoris; Assart (for the distinct term assartum)