BAILLI - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BAILLIAuthored

The Law Mind • 896 words

Definition

In old French law, a bailli (also spelled baillif or bailli) was an officer to whom judicial authority was assigned or delivered by a superior. The term applied across a spectrum of officials: at the higher end, royal appointees who exercised judicial and administrative authority over defined districts or provinces of the kingdom; at the lower end, subordinate officers who presided over the courts of individual lords. The bailli thus occupied a structural position in the feudal hierarchy as a delegate of jurisdiction — the authority he exercised was not inherent but conferred from above.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not in standard modern English use. Where the word survives, it appears in historical or French-language contexts referring to a medieval administrative or judicial officer.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as a primary headword in Webster's 1913, reflecting the term's status as borrowed legal and historical vocabulary rather than naturalized English.

Editorial note: Because bailli has no meaningful life in ordinary modern English, the common language gap is less a distortion than an absence. Researchers should not confuse the French bailli with the English bailiff — a related but distinct office that underwent its own separate evolution in English common law.

Common Confusion

BAILLI vs. BAILIFF: These terms share a root and a conceptual ancestor but diverged early. Bailiff became the dominant English form, applied in English law to a range of officers (court officers, estate managers, sheriffs' deputies) with meanings that shifted considerably across centuries. Bailli remained the French-law designation. Older English legal texts sometimes use the terms interchangeably or translate bailli loosely as "bailiff," which can obscure the specifically French institutional context. When a historical source uses bailiff in a continental or comparative law discussion, verify whether the underlying term is actually bailli.

BAILLI vs. BAILLIE/BAILLY: Burrill and Bouvier both note that baillie or bailly (in Law Latin) referred not to the officer but to the jurisdiction or province over which a bailli presided — the equivalent of bailiwick. Researchers encountering these variant spellings in old texts must determine from context whether the reference is to the person or the territory.

Why It Matters in Research

Bailli is an inert term in modern Anglo-American law — it appears in the Law Mind corpus almost exclusively in historical, comparative, and foundational treatises rather than in case law or statute. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in:

1. Sources on feudal administration and the history of the judiciary, where the bailli figures as evidence of how delegated judicial power was structured before the consolidation of national courts.

2. Comparative law discussions contrasting the development of French and English judicial institutions.

3. Entries and footnotes in the historical dictionaries themselves, where bailli often appears as a gateway term leading to bailiff, bailment, bailiwick, and bail — all derived from the same root concept of delivery or entrustment.

The primary research trap is terminological bleed. Because Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's all treat bailli briefly and point outward to related terms, a researcher who stops at this entry will miss the richer treatments sitting in adjacent headwords. Burrill in particular uses the bailli entry as a launching point, citing continental sources (Esprit des Lois, Robertson's Charles V) that do not appear in Black's — a reminder that the historical dictionaries are not interchangeable and that Burrill's coverage of comparative and civil law concepts is frequently more developed.

Jurisdictional variation is not a live research issue for this term in modern practice, but in historical research the distinction between the royal bailli (a significant figure in Capetian and later French administration) and the seigneurial bailli (a lord's court officer) matters for understanding the scope of authority being discussed in any given source.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four source dictionaries converge on a single core definition — one to whom judicial authority is assigned or delivered by a superior — with Burrill and Bouvier adding the most institutional texture. Burrill distinguishes between high royal officers presiding over districts and inferior officers in lords' courts, and cites Robertson's Charles V and Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois to ground the term in continental historical scholarship. Bouvier tracks Burrill closely and appends the related entries for baillie/bailly (jurisdiction) and segues directly into bailment.

Black's (both editions) offers only the stripped definition without the two-tier distinction Burrill draws. For corpus researchers, this means Black's alone is insufficient if the research question involves understanding what kind of bailli a source is discussing — the royal officer and the seigneurial officer held meaningfully different authority.

None of the historical dictionaries trace the office's development across the French monarchy or its decline. They treat bailli as a snapshot definition rather than a historical narrative. Researchers needing the institutional history must go beyond the dictionaries to the primary sources Burrill cites.

BAILLImain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In old French law. One to whom judicial authority was assigned or delivered by a superior.

BAILLImain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In Old French Law. One to whom judicial authority was assigned or delivered by a superior; Black, L. Dict. The term was applied both to those high officers who were appointed to act as judges in different districts of the kingdom, and to the inferior officers who presided in the lord's courts. Burrill. BAILLIE, or BAILLY (L. Lat.). A bailiwick (q.v.); jurisdiction; province. Burrill. BAILMENT (Fr. bailler, to put into the hands of; to deliver). A delivery of something of a personal nature by one party to another, to be held according to the purpose or object of the delivery, and to be returned or delivered over when that purpose is accomplished. Prof. Joel Parker, MS. Lect. Dane Law School, 1851. The right to hold may terminate, and a duty of restoration may arise, before the accomplishment of the purpose; but that does not necessarily enter Into the definition, because such duty of restoration was not the original purpose of the delivery, but arises upon a subsequent contingency. The party delivering the thing is called the bailor; the party receiving it, the ballee. Various attempts have been made to give a precise definition of this term, upon some of which there have been elaborate criticisms, see Story, Bailm. 4th ed. § 2, n. 1, exemplifying the maxim, "Omnis definitio in lege periculosa est;" but the one above given is concise, and sufficient for a general defini- tion. Some of these definitions are here given as illus- trating the elements considered necessary to a bail- ment by the different authors cited. A delivery of a thing in trust for some special ob- ject or purpose, and upon a contract, express or implied, to conform to the object or purpose of the trust. Story, Bailm. §2. See Merlin, Répert. Bail. A delivery of goods in trust upon a contract, either expressed or implied, that the trust shall be faith- fully executed on the part of the ballee. 2 Bla Com. 451. See id. 395. A delivery of goods in trust upon a contract, ex- pressed or implied, that the trust shall be duly exe- cuted, and the goods restored by the bailee as soon as the purposes of the bailment shall be answered. 2 Kent 559. A delivery of goods on a condition, express or im plied, that they shall be restored by the ballee to the bailor, or according to his directions, as soon as the purpose for which they are bailed shall be an- swered. Jones, Bailm. 1. A delivery of goods in trust on a contract, either expressed or implied, that the trust shall be duly executed, and the goods redelivered as soon as the time or use for which they were bailed shall have elapsed or be performed. Jones, Bailm. 117. According to Story, the contract does not neces- sarily imply an undertaking to redeliver the goods; and the first definition of Jones here given would seem to allow of a similar conclusion. On the other hand, Blackstone, although his definition does not include the return, speaks of it in all his examples of bailments as a duty of the bailee; and Kent says that the application of the term to cases in which no return or delivery or redelivery to the owner or his agent is contemplated, is extending the defini- tion of the term beyond its ordinary acceptation in the English law. A consignment to a factor would be a bailment for sale, according to Story; while according to Kent it would not be included under the term bailment. Sir William Jones has divided bailments into five sorts, namely: depositum, or de- posit; mandatum, or commission without recompense; commodatum, or loan for use without pay; pignori acceptum, or pawn; locatum, or hiring, which is always with reward. This last is subdivided into locatio rei, or hiring, by which the hirer gains a temporary use of the thing; locatio operis faciendi, when something is to be done to the thing delivered; locatio operis mercium vehendarum, when the thing is merely to be carried from one place to another. Jones, Bailm. 36. See these several titles. A better general division, however, for practical purposes, is into three kinds. First, those bailments which are for the benefit of the bailor, or of some person whom he represents. Second, those for the benefit of the bailee, or some person repre- sented by him. Third, those which are for the benefit of both parties. There are three degrees of care and dili- gence required of the bailee, and three de grees of the negligence for which he is re- sponsible, according to the purpose and ob- ject of the bailment, as shown in those three classes; and the class serves to desig- nate the degree of care, and of the negli- gence for which he is responsible. Thus, in the first class the bailee is required to exercise only slight care, and is responsible, of course, only for gross neglect. In the second he is required to exercise great care, and is responsible even for slight neglect. In the third he is required to exercise ordi- nary care, and is responsible for ordinary neglect. See BAILEE. There is a supplementary class, founded upon the policy of the law

BAILLImain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Fr. [from bailler, to deliver.] In old French law. A person to whom a judicial authority and jurisdiction were assigned or delivered by a superior.* The term was applied both to those high officers who were appointed to act as judges in different districts of the kingdom, and to the inferior officers who presided in the lords' courts. 1 Rob. Charles V. Appendix, note xxiii. Esprit des Lois, liv. 38, c. 42. See Bailiff, Missus dominicus. BAILLIE, Bailly. L. Lat. A bailiwick. Britt. c. 75. Yearb. 8 Edw. III. 7. Jurisdiction; province. LL. Gul. Cong. 1. 2.

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