Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning to assart — that is, to clear woodland or forest land by removing trees, underbrush, and roots so that the land could be converted to arable or pasture use. The past participial form *assertatum* means "assarted," describing land that has already been cleared in this manner. The term functions as a verb in Latin legal instruments and pleadings, with the English equivalent action known as assart.
Common Confusion
ASSERTARE should not be confused with the English verb "assert" or with the Latin *asserere*, meaning to claim or declare. The visual and phonetic similarity to modern legal language about claims and assertions is coincidental. ASSERTARE is exclusively a term of forest law, not of pleading or argumentation.
Why It Matters in Research
ASSERTARE appears in medieval and early modern English legal records primarily in the context of forest law enforcement — a body of law governing royal forests that had its own courts, officers, and offenses. Researchers encountering this term in plea rolls, eyre records, or original writs should understand they are working within the forest law system, not general common law pleading.
The term's significance is largely diagnostic: its presence in a document signals that the underlying dispute or offense concerns unauthorized clearing of forest land, which was a serious Crown interest. Royal forests were protected not merely as timber resources but as hunting grounds, and assarting without license was prosecutable before the forest courts (the attachment courts, swainmotes, and eyre of the forest). Encountering *assertare* or *assertatum* in a writ or roll should prompt the researcher to look for related forest law terminology — regarders, regardum, waste, purpresture — and to consider whether the record originates from a forest eyre rather than a common law court.
The Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.), cited by Burrill, is a standard reference for the forms of original writs in English practice and confirms that *assertare* had recognized procedural footing in the writ system. Researchers using digitized writ registers should search under both *assertare* and *assartare*, as spelling in medieval Latin legal manuscripts was not standardized.
Because forest law largely fell into disuse following the gradual disafforestation of England through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, *assertare* is essentially a dead term with no modern legal application. Its research relevance is confined to historical legal documents predating the effective end of the forest law regime.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is brief and points entirely to *Assart* for substantive treatment, with *assertare* noted only as the Latin verb form. This is typical of Burrill's handling of Latin variants — they are indexed to their English-language headword entries rather than developed independently. Researchers should follow Burrill's own cross-reference to the ASSART entry for fuller treatment, including the elements of the offense and the forest law context.
No other major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus develop *assertare* as a standalone entry; the term appears, where noted at all, as a Latin cognate of assart. Jacob's Law Dictionary and Tomlin's Law Dictionary treat *assart* substantively but do not separately index the Latin verbal form. This gap in the historical dictionary record means Burrill is the primary dictionary source for the term's Latin usage.
Jurisdictional Note
Forest law as a functioning system was specific to England and, in modified form, to some English colonial contexts. *Assertare* has no meaningful application in Scottish, Irish, or American legal history as a term of art, though assarting as a land-use practice occurred broadly wherever European common law settlers cleared forested land.