Definition
An archaic term drawn from old French and used in early English legal sources to denote trial by battel — the formal judicial combat (also called duellum) in which parties or their champions resolved a legal dispute by armed fight. The outcome of the combat was treated as the judgment of God and carried binding legal force. The term appears in historical English law sources as a variant spelling of "battel" or "battle" in its procedural sense, not in any military or colloquial sense.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Bataille" is a French word meaning battle, fight, or combat in the ordinary sense of armed conflict or struggle.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not carry "bataille" as an English entry; its English equivalent "battle" is defined as a general engagement between opposing forces in war.
The gap matters. In common French and in general English usage, "bataille" simply means combat or warfare. In its legal context, the term refers to a specific, highly formalized judicial procedure — trial by battel — with prescribed rules, recognized parties, and binding legal consequences. It is a procedural institution, not merely a fight.
Common Confusion
BATAILLE vs. BATTEL vs. BATTLE: These three forms represent the same underlying procedural institution spelled differently across periods and sources. "Battel" is the standard English legal spelling found in most treatises and statutes; "bataille" is the older French-influenced form appearing in early law dictionaries; "battle" in its ordinary sense has no procedural meaning. Researchers encountering "bataille" in historical sources should treat it as equivalent to battel and not read it as a reference to armed conflict in any general military sense.
Why It Matters in Research
The term is essentially a fossil — it appears in early English law dictionaries as a French-origin variant and is unlikely to appear in primary legal sources from any later period. Its research value is almost entirely navigational: a researcher who encounters "bataille" in an old source needs to recognize it as a pointer to trial by battel, not to any distinct procedural rule of its own.
Key traps: (1) The Black's entries for "bataille" bleed typographically into adjacent entries ("Bath, Knights of the" and "Batiment") due to the column-layout printing of early editions. Researchers using digitized or OCR-processed versions of Black's may find "bataille" conflated with surrounding content. Verify against facsimile editions. (2) Because "bataille" is the French form, it may appear in sources treating Norman or early common law procedure and in French-language legal texts of the medieval period. It should not be assumed to carry identical procedural meaning across French civil law and English common law traditions — trial by battel was an English common law institution with specific procedural rules that do not map directly onto any French civil law equivalent. (3) Trial by battel was formally abolished in England by statute in 1819 (59 Geo. III c. 46), prompted by the case of Ashford v. Thornton (1818). Sources predating abolition may treat battel as live procedure; sources postdating it treat it as historical curiosity.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both Black's editions define "bataille" identically and minimally: "In old English law. Battel; the trial by combat or duellum." The first edition entry is compressed by an apparent typesetting run-on into the Knights of the Bath entry, a layout artifact repeated in the second edition. Neither edition provides procedural detail, historical context, or citation to authority — the entries function solely as cross-references to "battel."
What the historical dictionaries miss: Neither edition explains that "bataille" is the French antecedent form, nor do they distinguish it from the English procedural term. No reference is made to the abolition statute or the Ashford v. Thornton episode that precipitated it. Researchers wanting substantive treatment of the underlying institution must follow the cross-reference to "battel" and supplement with treatise sources such as Blackstone's Commentaries (Book III, Chapter 22) or Pollock and Maitland's History of English Law.
Jurisdictional Note
Trial by battel was an institution of English common law and was never received as operative procedure in American jurisdictions. American courts and legislatures had no occasion to formally abolish it. The term "bataille" has no recognized procedural meaning in any United States jurisdiction.