Definition
A Latin term from feudal law meaning to assault, to attack, or to offer violence to another. The term appears in feudal legal texts to describe the physical act of aggression against a person, particularly in the context of violations of feudal peace obligations or offenses against a lord, vassal, or protected party.
Common Confusion
Burrill's entry runs ASSILIRE directly into ASSIS (also rendered Assise or Assys), a distinct French feudal term meaning fixed, set, appointed, affeered, assigned, or situated. The proximity of these entries in historical dictionaries creates a risk of misreading, particularly in manuscript sources where abbreviation or cramped typography may blur word boundaries. ASSIS and its variants are the root of the English legal term ASSIZE, which has no meaningful connection to ASSILIRE. A researcher encountering either term in a feudal text should confirm which word is actually present before drawing conclusions about meaning.
Why It Matters in Research
ASSILIRE is encountered almost exclusively in Latin feudal legal sources, principally the Libri Feudorum, the medieval compilation of Lombard feudal custom that served as a foundational reference for feudal jurisprudence across continental Europe and influenced English feudal scholarship. Researchers working in feudal law materials, whether primary texts or early modern treatises drawing on that tradition, should be aware of several navigational points.
First, the term carries legal weight beyond its surface meaning of physical attack. In feudal contexts, to assilire a lord, vassal, or protected person was not merely a criminal act but a breach of the feudal bond itself, potentially triggering forfeiture of a fief or loss of feudal status. The violence was simultaneously a physical wrong and a relational violation within the hierarchy of feudal tenure. Understanding this dual dimension is essential when reading passages where the term appears in discussions of forfeiture, treason, or breach of homage.
Second, because the term derives from and refers to the Libri Feudorum tradition, it is most likely to appear in Latin treatises and commentaries on feudal custom rather than in English common law reports. Researchers searching English legal materials will rarely encounter ASSILIRE in Year Books or plea rolls; its natural habitat is the civil-law-influenced feudal scholarship transmitted through continental and Scottish sources into English feudal commentary.
Third, the term does not migrate into English legal usage in its Latin form. Where English common law addressed the same conduct, it used terms such as assault, battery, or mayhem, depending on the nature and degree of violence. A researcher should not attempt to map ASSILIRE directly onto English common law doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the principal English-language lexicographic record of this term. The entry is brief, pointing to Feudorum Libri I, title 5, section 1, and to Hotman's De Verbis Feudalibus, the sixteenth-century glossary of feudal terminology by the French jurist François Hotman. Burrill offers no substantive analysis beyond the core meaning, which is typical for highly technical Latin feudal terms that had ceased to carry any active doctrinal significance by the time nineteenth-century American law dictionaries were compiled. No other standard historical legal dictionary in the Law Mind corpus — not Black's, not Bouvier's, not Tomlin's — appears to carry a separate entry for this term, making Burrill the primary source and the limits of that entry the effective limits of the lexicographic record. Researchers needing deeper treatment should go directly to Hotman's glossary or to the relevant passage in the Libri Feudorum.
Jurisdictional Note
ASSILIRE belongs entirely to the continental Lombard feudal tradition as codified in the Libri Feudorum and is not a term of art in English, Scottish, or American common law. Its jurisdictional relevance is historical and academic rather than operative.