BER - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BERAuthored

The Law Mind • 743 words

Definition

"Ber" appears in the historical legal dictionaries as a fragmented or misattributed entry. Based on the source material available, the term does not carry a single coherent legal meaning. The three historical dictionary entries associated with this headword in fact belong to separate, unrelated legal terms — specifically the Court of Exchequer Chamber (from Black's and Bouvier's) and bere or boon-work (from Burrill's). No independent legal doctrine, term of art, or procedural concept answers to "ber" as a standalone legal term in the English or American common law tradition.

Researchers encountering "ber" as a dictionary headword should treat it as a product of indexing error, optical character recognition artifact, or truncation in digitized historical sources, rather than as a term with substantive legal content.

Common Confusion

Do not conflate the Court of Exchequer Chamber with either the Court of Exchequer (a superior common law court with original jurisdiction) or the House of Lords (the court above the Exchequer Chamber in the appellate hierarchy). The Exchequer Chamber functioned specifically as an intermediate error-correcting court. It was abolished by the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875, which reorganized English superior courts into the Supreme Court of Judicature.

Do not conflate the feudal bere service described in Burrill's entry with "boon work" more broadly or with villein tenure. These are related but distinct concepts in the history of English land tenure.

Why It Matters in Research

This entry is a research trap. In digitized historical legal dictionaries — particularly those that have been scanned and processed through OCR — headwords are sometimes generated from partial strings, broken page layouts, or misread letterforms. "Ber" is almost certainly a truncation or OCR artifact of a longer term. The three source entries clearly belong to different terms:

— Black's and Bouvier's entries describe the Court of Exchequer Chamber, a significant English appellate court. The headword for these entries should be read as "EXCHEQUER CHAMBER, COURT OF" or a variant thereof.

— Burrill's entry describes bere (sometimes spelled "boon" or "averagium"), a feudal agricultural service owed by a tenant to a lord involving plough and cart. The relevant headwords in Burrill are "BERE" or "AVERAGIUM."

If you are searching a Law Mind corpus and encounter "ber" as a search result or headword, do not treat it as an authoritative entry. Follow the underlying content to its correct term. Keyword searches for "ber" will surface noise across multiple unrelated doctrines. Narrow your search immediately to the specific concept you are investigating.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's Law Dictionary cites 3 Bl. Comm. 56–57 in what is plainly a description of the Court of Exchequer Chamber — an intermediate appellate court in English common law sitting to correct errors from the three superior common law courts (King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer). When hearing appeals from any one of those courts, the chamber was composed of judges from the other two, providing a built-in check against institutional bias.

Bouvier's entry expands on this, noting that the court was first erected by statute 31 Edw. III c. 12 to hear writs of error from the common law side of the Exchequer, and that it consisted of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, and justices of King's Bench and Common Pleas. This is substantively accurate and consistent with the historical record.

Burrill's entry, by contrast, describes a tenure service — a tenant's obligation to provide labor with plough and cart to a lord — citing Lambard's Eirenarcha, Coke on Littleton, and Cowell's Interpreter. This is the concept properly indexed under "bere" or related agricultural tenure terms, not under any form of "ber."

None of these historical entries speak to a single unified legal concept called "ber." The convergence of unrelated material under this headword is a dictionary artifact, not a reflection of legal doctrine.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Court of Exchequer Chamber
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Feudal Tenure; Agricultural Services

BERmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In English Law. A court for the correction and prevention of errors of law in the three superior common-law courts of the kingdom. A court of exchequer chamber was first erected by statute 31 Edw. III. c. 12, to determine causes upon writs of error from the common-law side of the exchequer court. It consisted of the lord chan- cellor, lord treasurer, and the justices of the king's bench and common pleas. A second court of ex- chequer chamber was instituted by statute 27 Eliz. c. 8, consisting of the justices of the common pleas and the exchequer, which had jurisdiction in error of cases commenced in the king's bench. By stat- utes 11 Geo. IV. and 1 Will. IV. c. 70, these courts were abolished and the court of exchequer chamber substituted in their place. It is now merged in the Court of Appeals, under the Judicature Acts, q. v. As a court of debate, it was composed of the judges of the three superior courts of law, to whom is sometimes added the lord chancellor. To this court questions of un- usual difficulty or moment were referred before judgment from either of the three courts. As a court of appeals, it consisted of the judges of two of the three superior courts of law (common bench, king's bench, and exchequer) sitting to decide writs of error from the other two courts. 3 Bla. Com. 56, 57; 3 Steph. Com. 333, 356. From the decisions of this court a writ of error lay to the House of Lords; but no such appeal lies from the court of appeal under the new act.