Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning "fixed," "established," or "ordained." Used in medieval legal instruments and records to describe something formally settled or decreed — typically a rate, standard, or regulation that had been authoritatively set. The term appears in historical legal texts to indicate that a rule, price, measure, or obligation had been given official legal force, as opposed to merely customary or informal standing.
Why It Matters in Research
ASSISATUM is a term researchers will encounter almost exclusively in Latin legal records from the medieval and early modern English periods — plea rolls, borough records, assize proceedings, and similar administrative documents. Its significance is largely interpretive: when the word appears, it signals that the subject matter (a price, a quantity, a duty) has been officially fixed by legal authority, often by an assize. Researchers reading such records should treat the term as a marker of formal legal regulation rather than mere description.
The key research trap is conflating ASSISATUM with its root ASSISA (assize). ASSISA refers to the proceeding or institution; ASSISATUM is an adjectival or participial form describing the thing that has been fixed or established by that process. A document describing bread as "assisatum" is not invoking the assize court — it is saying the price or weight of the bread has been authoritatively set. This distinction matters when parsing the legal effect being claimed in a historical source.
Researchers working in corpus materials touching on medieval economic regulation — bread, ale, wine, weights and measures — will find this term surfacing in contexts involving the Assisa Panis et Cervisiae (Assize of Bread and Ale) and similar regulatory regimes. Understanding ASSISATUM helps identify whether a record is describing a violation of a fixed standard or simply noting a customary practice.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the entry's only historical legal dictionary support, citing Spelman for the meaning "fixed or established" and Skene's De Verborum Significatione for "ordained" (statutum), with reference to Skene's discussion of ASSISA. The two glosses are complementary rather than conflicting: "fixed" (Spelman) captures the state of settlement, while "ordained" (Skene) captures the authoritative act that produced that state. Together they confirm the term functions as the adjectival or participial form of the broader assize concept.
No other historical legal dictionaries in the current Law Mind corpus carry a separate entry for ASSISATUM. Researchers needing fuller treatment of the underlying assize concept should consult sources on ASSISA, which receives broader coverage across the shelf. The thinness of the historical dictionary record for ASSISATUM itself reflects its status as a term of art within Latin records rather than a freestanding doctrine — it was a usage for scribes and pleaders, not a concept requiring extended legal exposition.
Jurisdictional Note
ASSISATUM is historical to English law and appears in Scottish sources (via Skene) as well, reflecting shared medieval Latin legal vocabulary across the British Isles. It has no operative significance in modern jurisdictions.