BAGA - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BAGAAuthored

The Law Mind • 639 words

Definition

A Medieval Latin term from old English law meaning "bag" or "purse." The word appears in historical legal records to describe a physical bag used for storing documents or money. Its primary significance in the English legal tradition is as the root of the institutional term "petty-bag," referring to a specific office within the Court of Chancery. Original writs relating to the business of the Crown were kept in a small bag — in parvâ bagâ — giving rise to the Petty-Bag Office, which operated within the common-law jurisdiction of Chancery.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encounter baga almost exclusively when tracing the institutional history of the English Court of Chancery or when reading older Year Book entries and Latin pleading records. The term itself carries no substantive legal doctrine, but it functions as a key to unlocking the organizational structure of Chancery jurisdiction. Understanding that the Petty-Bag Office took its name from the physical storage of Crown writs helps researchers correctly interpret references to "petty-bag" proceedings in historical English sources — a category of Chancery business distinct from the equity side of the court.

The term also surfaces in Latin phrases embedded in Year Book entries, such as the Burrill example drawing from Michaelmas Term, 18 Henry VI, where a bag containing a sum certain is referenced in pleading. Researchers working with Year Books or early common law records should recognize baga as a neutral descriptive term for a container of documents or money, not as a term of art carrying independent legal consequence.

The transition from Latin to Law French and then to English in legal records means the term appears in variant forms — baga (Latin), bague (Law French) — across different source periods. A researcher reading records from different eras may encounter both without realizing they refer to the same underlying concept.

Note also that Burrill's entry pivots mid-definition into a discussion of "baggage" under carrier contracts — a legally distinct topic sharing only a linguistic root. This juxtaposition is an artifact of alphabetical arrangement and dictionary convention, not substantive connection. The rules governing what constitutes baggage under a passenger carrier contract (a developed common law and later statutory doctrine) have no relationship to the medieval administrative term baga.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in agreement on the core definition: baga means bag or purse in Medieval Latin. All three sources anchor the term's legal significance in the Petty-Bag Office of Chancery, citing Maddock's Treatise on the Principles and Practice of the High Court of Chancery (1 Madd. Ch. 4) as authority. The Latin phrase in parvâ bagâ appears consistently across both Black's editions.

Burrill adds documentary texture by quoting a Year Book passage — Yearb. M. 18 Hen. VI. 5 — showing baga in active pleading use, which neither Black's edition provides. This makes Burrill marginally more useful for researchers seeking to trace the word in primary source context rather than merely institutional history.

None of the historical dictionaries address the fate of the Petty-Bag Office itself, which was abolished in the nineteenth century as part of the Judicature reforms reorganizing the English court system. Researchers should not assume the office was a living institution when consulting sources written after the 1870s reforms.

Jurisdictional Note

Baga and the Petty-Bag Office are exclusively English legal history. The term has no recognized counterpart in American law and does not appear in U.S. jurisdictional sources. Researchers working in American legal history will encounter it only in comparative or transplanted-doctrine contexts.

BAGAmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In English law. A bag or purse. Thus there is the petty-bag-office in the com- mon-law jurisdiction of the court of chancery, because all original writs relating to the busi- ness of the crown were formerly kept in a little sack or bag, in parvâ bagâ. 1 Madd. Ch. 4.

BAGAmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

L. Lat. [L. Fr. bague.] In old English law. Bag; a bag. Et d'd envers eux unam bagam, ove C. l. in ead' baga content'. Yearb. M. 18 Hen. VI. 5. "BAGGAGE," under a contract of a carrier of passengers, does not embrace samples of merchandise carried by the passenger in a trunk, with a view of enabling him to make bargains for the sale of goods. 6 Hill's (N. Y.) R. 586. Nor does it embrace money in the trunk, and articles usually carried about the person, and not as baggage. Bronson, J. Id. 589. Otherwise, however, as to articles for the personal use, convenience, instruction or amusement of the passenger on the way, and usually carried as baggage. Id. 590. Sec 2 Kent's Com. 601, and notes. BAIL, Baile, Baille. Fr. and L. Fr. [from bailer, to deliver.] Delivery of land; livery. Bail de la seisine; livery of seisin. Britt. c. 33. Nul bail ne nul seisine; no livery and no seisin. Id. c. 40. Delivery à Bail, in the modern sense; as embracing the ideas both of delivery and of keeping. Ceux que sount lesses par bail à ascuns, respondre pur eux, cors pur cors; those who are let by [to] bail to any, to answer for them, body for body. Id. c. 125. To BAIL, Bayl. [L. Fr. bailler; L. Lat. balliare; from Gr. Badev, to send, or deliver.] In old English law. To deliver, commit or entrust a thing to another, (rem alteri tradere, vel committere.) Spelman, voc. Balliare. The word is constantly used in this sense in the old books. "If a feme sole bail goods to one, and marry with the bayle," [bailee.] Finch, Law, b. 1, ch. 3, num. 55. "Where I bail my goods to J. S. to bail over to T. K." Perkins, ch. 11, s. 815. "If I bayl to you an obligation, to re-bail the same to me before such a day." 3 Leon. 150, case 200. The modern terms bailment, bailor and bailee are derivatives of this now obsolete word. In practice. To deliver a person from arrest, or out of custody, to the keeping of other persons, on their undertaking to be responsible for his appearance at a day and place certain. Bract. fol. 123. To discharge a person from arrest, on his finding sureties for his appearance at a certain time and place. A person bailed on civil process is very commonly said to be at large, but in contemplation of law this is not strictly correct; he being always accounted to be in the custody of his sureties, until surrendered by them, or finally discharged. See Bail. To become bail for another. 1 Leon. 94.

BAGAmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

In English law. A bag or purse. Thus there is the petty-bag-office in the common-law jurisdiction of the court of chancery, because all original writs relating to the business of the crown were formerly kept in a little sack or bag, in parvd bagd. 1 Madd. Ch. 4.

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