Definition
In old English law, a female bastard — that is, a woman born outside of lawful marriage. The term is the Latin feminine form of *bastardus* and appears in medieval legal texts to distinguish the sex of an illegitimate person where that distinction carried legal significance, particularly in matters of inheritance, status, and custody. The masculine form *bastardus* was the default term in most legal maxims, and *bastarda* was used when the female specifically was the subject of legal analysis.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A type of simplified Gothic script used primarily in continental Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; subsumed under general entries related to "bastard."
The gap here is sharp and easily overlooked. A researcher encountering *bastarda* in a paleographic or manuscript studies context is reading about a handwriting style. A researcher encountering it in a legal record or law dictionary is reading a status term for an illegitimate female. These two meanings belong to entirely separate disciplinary traditions and share only the Latin root. Confusion between them is unlikely in context but warrants awareness when searching across interdisciplinary databases or digitized historical collections.
Why It Matters in Research
*Bastarda* is an infrequent but real term in medieval English legal records, appearing in contexts where the sex of an illegitimate person was legally relevant — most commonly in pleadings raising the exception of bastardy against an inheritance claim, and in ecclesiastical court proceedings. Because illegitimacy law was bifurcated between common law courts and church courts in medieval England, sources that address *bastarda* may be scattered across both legal and canon law materials.
The term is largely absent from post-medieval legal writing. By the time English law codified or reformed bastardy doctrine in the nineteenth century, the Latin terminology had dropped from practical use. Researchers searching for this term in digitized law reports or statutes should not expect results beyond early modern or medieval sources.
A practical trap: digitization of Fleta and similar medieval treatises can produce OCR errors that confuse *bastarda* with *bastardus* or produce garbled variants. When working with Fleta, lib. 5, c. 5, § 40 — the source cited consistently across the dictionary tradition — researchers should consult a reliable edited text rather than relying on uncorrected digital transcriptions.
The term also surfaces as a reminder that illegitimacy law had gender dimensions that later consolidated doctrine often obscures. Status consequences for illegitimate women differed in some respects from those for illegitimate men, particularly around dower, wardship, and the inheritance of land.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries present a striking uniformity: all define *bastarda* as "a female bastard" and every one that cites a primary authority points to Fleta, lib. 5, c. 5, § 40. Bouvier's alone cites Calvinus's *Lexicon Juridicum* rather than Fleta, suggesting an alternative civil law or continental source, which is consistent with the broader reach of Calvinus as a comparative legal dictionary.
Black's 2nd edition reproduces the citation as "Fileta" — almost certainly a typographical error for "Fleta," and consistent with the OCR and typesetting errors that affect many digitized editions of that work. Researchers should not treat "Fileta" as a distinct source.
None of the dictionary entries develop the substantive law behind the term; they function as glosses rather than treatises. Rapalje & Lawrence provides the most contextual material by appending the maxim *Bastardus nullius est filius, aut filius populi* ("A bastard is nobody's son, or the son of the people") and a brief note on maternal custody, though this material addresses bastardy generally rather than *bastarda* specifically. The historical dictionaries collectively confirm this is a term of art from medieval Latin legal usage with no meaningful post-Reformation legal life.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is specific to English common law and canon law in the medieval period. It does not appear as a term of art in American law. Continental civil law traditions used comparable Latin terminology but within different doctrinal frameworks governing illegitimacy.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: BASTARD