BAS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BASAuthored

The Law Mind • 814 words

Definition

"Bas" is a French-derived adjective and prefix used in historical English and French legal terminology to mean low, inferior, subordinate, or of lesser degree. It appears not as a standalone term of legal art but as a qualifying element in compound expressions borrowed from Law French, modifying nouns to indicate a diminished rank, lesser tenure, or subordinate status within a hierarchy.

Principal compound forms include:

1. Bas chevaliers — Low or inferior knights holding by base military tenure, distinguished from barons and bannerets, who constituted the superior grades of the feudal military hierarchy.

2. Bas ville — In French law, the suburbs or outskirts of a town, as opposed to the principal urban center.

The term functions as a modifier rather than an independent legal concept, and its legal significance lies entirely in the compounds it forms.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "ba," a phonetic or informal unit, with no meaningful general English usage as a standalone word.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not independently listed as an English word; appears in English usage only through borrowed French compounds.

Editorial note: The legal use of "bas" is entirely a Law French survival with no modern common English counterpart. A researcher encountering "bas" in early English legal records should recognize it immediately as a French qualifier signaling subordinate status, not as an English word.

Common Confusion

"Bas" in legal sources can be confused with "base" (the anglicized adjective meaning the same thing), and the two forms appear interchangeably in different editions and translations of the same materials. Burrill's entries for "bar" appear in close textual proximity to "bas"-derived terms, which can create indexing and search confusion in undifferentiated corpus scans. Researchers should query both "bas" and "base" when tracing feudal tenure terminology across Law French and anglicized sources.

Why It Matters in Research

The practical research challenge with "bas" is that it is a fragment of Law French vocabulary that migrated into English legal writing without full anglicization, leaving a scattered trail across glossaries, Year Books, and feudal tenure treatises. Several issues affect corpus navigation:

Historical sources index inconsistently. Some dictionaries (including Black's 2nd Ed.) treat "bas" as an entry leading immediately into "base," blending the two without clear demarcation. Burrill's contemporaneous material treats "bar" and related French terms in close proximity, increasing the risk of mis-attribution in transcribed or scanned sources.

The Year Book references (e.g., Yearb. P. 6 Edw. III) are the primary locus for original Law French usage, and the compounds formed with "bas" are most reliably interpreted in that context rather than in later English common law digests, where anglicization has often stripped the French prefix entirely.

Feudal tenure research specifically: "Bas chevaliers" is relevant to any research into the lower grades of knight-service tenure, military fees, and the distinction between baronial and sub-baronial holding. Cowell's Interpreter is the standard reference cited for this compound and should be consulted alongside Black's gloss.

Jurisdictional carry-over into American law is negligible. These terms are essentially historical artifacts without operational use in American common law. They appear in American legal dictionaries primarily as philological entries preserving the civilian and feudal vocabulary that informed early English law.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) treats "bas" as a direct entry leading into compound definitions, most fully developed under "bas chevaliers" (citing Cowell) and "bas ville." The entry situates the term within a broader cluster of "base" compounds — base animal, base bullion, base fee, base tenure — reflecting a conscious effort to gather Law French survivals into a coherent vocabulary group.

Burrill's Law Dictionary does not develop a discrete "bas" entry in the surviving excerpt but uses French-language material from the Year Books in adjacent entries (particularly around "bar" and related plea terminology), illustrating the broader Law French vocabulary environment in which "bas" compounds circulated. Burrill's approach is more philological and Year Book-grounded than Black's more definitional style.

Neither dictionary provides substantial substantive development of the term beyond identifying its French origin and feudal application. Both sources agree on the core meaning — low, inferior, subordinate — and neither disputes the other's compounds. The gap both sources leave is any systematic account of how these terms functioned procedurally or were applied by courts, for which the Year Books themselves and secondary feudal law treatises (Littleton, Coke on Littleton) remain the necessary supplement.

Jurisdictional Note

"Bas" compounds are essentially confined to English legal history and early common law materials. They carry no operational significance in modern American, Canadian, or English law and appear in current legal dictionaries only as historical glossary items. Research into French civil law uses the word in its ordinary French sense without specific legal loading.

BASmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

(191) spondera pas, mes si jeo fuisse à la barre, jeo vous respondisse bien toste; I will make no answer now, but if I were at the bar, I would answer you very soon. Yearb. P. 6 Edw. III. 44. Bar; a plea in bar. Dyer, 118, (Fr. ed.) Le barre nest bone; the bar (plea) is not good. Keilw. 11. Bar; the bar. The members of the legal profession, serjeants or barristers, practising in a particular court. Fuit clerement dit & agree per tout le barre & tout le banke; it was clearly said and agreed by all the bar and all the bench. Keilw. 40. BARRETOR, Barrettor, Barrator, Barator, Barratoure. [L. Lat. barector, barectator, baraterius. According to Coke, from Fr. barat, a wrangling suit, a brawl or quarrel; according to others, from Fr. barat, deceit, fraud.] In criminal law. A common mover, exciter or maintainer of suits and quarrels either in courts, or elsewhere in the country; a disturber of the peace who spreads false rumors and calumnies, whereby discord and disquiet may grow among neighbors. Co. Litt. 368. Stat. Westm. 1, c. 18. 8 Co. 36. Latch, 194. Cro. Car. 192. Termes de la Ley. Cowell. Shaw, C. J. 11 Pick. R. 432, 434. See Barretry. In old law. A litigious, contentious person, (litigator, contentiosus); one who haunts the courts, (qui prætorium nimis frequentat). Spelman. Hortensius Cavalcanus, cited ibid. In Scotch law. A simonist; a judge who takes a bribe for giving judgment. Skene de Verb. Sign, voc. Barratrie. BARRETRY, Barratry. [L. Lat. barratria, barateria.] In criminal law. The act or offence of a barretor, (q. v.); usually called common barretry. The offence of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels, either at law or otherwise. 4 Bl. Com. 134. 4 Steph. Com. 262. No one can be convicted of a single act of barretry; for every indictment for that offence must charge the defendant with being a common barretor. 4 Chitt. Bl. Com. 134, note. Steph. Crim. Law, 67. 4 Steph. Com. 262. See 11 Pick. R. 432. 1 Bailey's R. 379. U. S. Digest, Barratry. This word is sometimes written barratry, thus confounding it with quite a different offence. See Barratry. BARRISTER, (and formerly) BARRAS Fr. [L. Lat. bassus.] Low; base; or inferior. (192) English law. That estate which base tenquest, in imitation of that assumed by the ants have in their land. Cowell. emperors of the east and west. 1 Bl. Com.

BASmain

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

Fr. Low; inferior; subordinate. —Bas chevaliers. In old English law. Low, or inferior knights, by tenure of a base military fee, as distinguished from barons and bannerets, who. were the chief or superior knights. Cowell.—Bas ville. In French law. The suburbs of a town. ' BASE, adj. Low; inferior; servile; of subordinate degree; impure, adulterated, or alloyed. —Base animal. See ANIMAL.—Base bulHon. Base silver bullion is silver in bars mixed to a greater or less extent with alloys or base materials. Hope Min. Co. v. Kennon, 3 Mont. 44.—Base coin. Debased, adulterated, or alloyed coin. Gabe v. State, 6 Ark. 540.— Base court. In English law. Any inferior court that is not of record, as a court baron, etc. Kitch. 95, 96; Cowell—Base estate. The estate which “base tenants” (9, v.) have in their land. Cowell.—Base fee. In English law. An estate or fee which has a qualification subjoined thereto, and which must be determined whenever the qualification annexed to it is at an end. 2 Bl. Comm. 109. Wiggins Ferry Co. v. Railroad Co., 94 Ill. 93; Camp Meeting Ass'n v. East Lyme, 54 Conn. 152, 5 Atl. 849. —Base-infeftment. In‘Scotch law. A disposition of lands by a vassal, to be held of himself.—Base right. In Scotch law. A subordinate right; the right of a subvassal in the lands held by him. Bell.—Base services. -In feudal law. Such services as were unworthy to be performed by the nobler men, and were performed by the peasants and those of servile rank. 2 Bl. Comm. 61.—Base tenants. Tenants who performed to their lords services in villenage; tenants who held at the will of the lord, as distinguished from frank tenants, or freeholders. Cowell.—Base tenure. A tenure by villenage, or other customary service, as distinguished from tenure by military service; or from tenure by free service. Cowell.

basnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

plural of ba

basverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

third-person singular simple present indicative of ba

BASname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Initialism of Book of Alternative Services. | Initialism of British Antarctic Survey.

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