Definition
An archaic spelling of barratry (also spelled barretry, barratory, and barraterie). In criminal law, barretry is the offense of habitually exciting, stirring up, or maintaining suits and quarrels — whether at law or by other means — without lawful cause or justification. The emphasis is on repetition: a single instance does not constitute the offense. The wrongdoer is called a barretor (or barrator), and the crime is typically qualified as "common barretry" to signal its habitual character.
The offense was grounded in the common law's concern that professional mischief-makers — individuals who fomented litigation for personal gain, amusement, or malice — corrupted the judicial process and disturbed public order. Barretry was treated as a misdemeanor at common law and was actionable both criminally and, in some formulations, civilly.
Note: This entry covers the spelling variant BARRETRY. The substantive law is treated under the primary spelling BARRATRY.
Common Language
Wiktionary: "Archaic form of barratry."
The common usage here is purely orthographic — barretry has no life outside legal and historical texts. Researchers encountering this spelling in older materials should recognize it as a variant, not a distinct concept. The gap that matters is not between legal and lay meaning, but between this older spelling and the modern standard form barratry, which is the term currently used in both legal dictionaries and surviving criminal statutes.
Common Confusion
Three related but distinct concepts cluster around this term and are frequently conflated:
Barretry (barratry) — the land-based offense of stirring up litigation and quarrels; a crime against public order.
Maintenance — the unlawful support of another's litigation by a stranger to the suit, typically by financing it.
Champerty — a species of maintenance in which the supporter takes a share of the proceeds as consideration for the support.
Barretry is the broader, more active offense: the barretor personally instigates suits. Maintenance and champerty involve a third party's improper involvement in existing litigation. All three were common law misdemeanors, and all three are historically connected, but they are not synonyms. Additionally, barratry in admiralty law — the fraudulent or criminal misconduct of a ship's master or crew against the vessel's owner — is a wholly separate concept sharing only the same root word. Researchers must identify which sense is operative from context.
Why It Matters in Research
Spelling variation is the primary research trap. In primary and secondary sources predating the twentieth century, researchers will encounter barretry, barratry, barratery, barratory, and barraterie as interchangeable spellings of the same offense. Full-text corpus searches that use only the modern standard spelling will miss a significant portion of relevant historical material. Any corpus search strategy should include multiple spelling variants.
The offense is largely obsolete as an active criminal charge. Most American jurisdictions abolished common barretry by statute during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, though remnants survive in some states, sometimes reframed as statutes prohibiting the solicitation of legal business (ambulance chasing). Historical sources describing barretry as a living criminal offense should be read against the backdrop of this gradual desuetude.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry provided in the source material does not contain a substantive definition of barretry — it appears to carry text from a neighboring entry (bargain and sale / Statute of Uses). Researchers relying on that dictionary for this term should treat it as unhelpful and consult Black's editions directly.
Connections to champerty and maintenance are important for corpus navigation: treatises discussing one of the three offenses typically discuss all three, so encyclopedia and treatise entries on champerty or maintenance will often contain the most sustained analysis of barretry as well.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) are in close agreement, defining barretry as the act or offense of a barretor — specifically, "the offense of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels, either at law or otherwise" — and both cite Blackstone's Commentaries (4 Bl. Comm. 134) and Stephen's Commentaries (4 Steph. Comm. 262) as authority. The qualifier "frequently" is significant: both editions embed the element of habitual conduct directly in the definition, confirming that the offense required a pattern rather than a single act.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is not usable for this term as a matter of source integrity; the text provided corresponds to an entirely different entry.
What historical dictionaries do not address is the offshore divergence of barratry as a term of admiralty law — a gap that becomes a genuine research hazard when the two bodies of doctrine appear in close proximity in older treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
Barretry as a distinct common law criminal offense has been abolished or has fallen into complete disuse in most American jurisdictions. England abolished it by statute in 1967 (Criminal Law Act 1967). In jurisdictions where vestigial statutes remain, the conduct formerly prosecuted as barretry is more likely to be addressed under attorney professional conduct rules, solicitation statutes, or abuse-of-process doctrine.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Champerty and Maintenance (for the connected common law offenses and their modern survival); Barratry (Admiralty) (for the distinct maritime offense).