Definition
Avanture is an archaic Anglo-French legal term carrying two distinct meanings in historical legal usage:
1. (General sense) Chance, hazard, or mischance — the element of fortuity or accident. Used in early common law contexts to describe events arising from chance rather than design, particularly in cases touching on accidental death or injury.
2. (Commercial/negotiable instruments sense, chiefly Canadian) An endorsement or act of suretyship on the bottom of a promissory note or bill of exchange, by which the signing party guarantees the instrument in favor of the payee. In this usage, avanture functions as a variant form of aval — the guarantee of a negotiable instrument by a third party.
Common Confusion
Avanture and aventure appear interchangeably in historical sources and are treated as variant spellings of the same root concept. Burrill directs readers from avanture to aventure, and the two should be understood as the same term for research purposes. Neither should be confused with adventure in its modern recreational sense, nor with the distinct legal term grosse aventure (bottomry), which is a specific maritime loan arrangement indexed separately in historical dictionaries. The commercial-instruments meaning (suretyship endorsement) and the general chance/hazard meaning share the same word but arise in entirely different legal contexts; conflating them will send a researcher down the wrong path.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
D'aventure — perchance; perhaps. A qualifying phrase used in early law French pleading and commentary.
En avanture — for fear; lest there should be occasion for. A precautionary phrasing appearing in law French instruments.
Grosse avanture — see bottomry; a maritime loan in which repayment is conditioned on the safe arrival of a vessel.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth-century sources and in law French texts. Researchers encountering avanture in historical records should immediately determine which of the two meanings applies — the commercial/suretyship sense is essentially confined to Lower Canadian (Quebec) legal materials citing civil law traditions, while the chance/hazard sense appears in broader common law and law French contexts.
The suretyship meaning connects to the civilian concept of aval, which survives in modern civil law systems (including Quebec) as a formal guarantee of a negotiable instrument. Researchers working in Quebec legal history or early Canadian commercial law should treat avanture in this sense as equivalent to aval and consult civil law sources accordingly.
The chance/hazard meaning is important for understanding early felony law and deodand doctrine. Medieval and early modern English law distinguished between homicides by chance (per infortunium or by avanture) and those by premeditation or negligence. An accidental killing per avanture could affect the disposition of property — including the forfeiture of a deodand — and bears on the historical distinction between murder, manslaughter, and excusable homicide. Researchers tracing the origins of mens rea doctrine or accidental-death pleading will find this usage significant.
The term is essentially dead in modern legal writing. Its presence in a document is a reliable marker of law French origin or of a text drawing heavily on civilian or pre-nineteenth-century common law sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries capture both meanings but do not fully reconcile them. Black's First Edition records only the commercial/suretyship sense, citing a Lower Canadian report, while Black's Second Edition records only the chance/hazard sense — an unusual split across editions of the same dictionary suggesting the editors drew on different source pools for each. Burrill provides the most complete treatment, identifying the chance/hazard meaning, supplying the variant phrases d'aventure and en avanture, and directing readers to both aventure and grosse avanture. Burrill's sourcing to Kelham (his standard authority for law French terms) is consistent with careful historical practice.
None of the three dictionaries adequately flags the divergence between the two meanings or explains the civil law lineage of the suretyship sense. A researcher relying on any single entry risks missing half the picture.
Jurisdictional Note
The commercial/suretyship sense of avanture appears to be specific to Lower Canadian legal practice and reflects the civil law tradition of Quebec. The chance/hazard sense is rooted in English common law and law French usage and has no meaningful jurisdictional limitation within the common law world, though it is effectively historical everywhere.