Definition
A Latin and Law Latin phrase meaning "twice baked," used in old English law to describe a particular variety of bread known as simenel (also spelled symenel). The term appears in medieval English legal sources regulating the quality and sale of bread, where precise distinctions among bread types carried legal significance under the assize of bread.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not a current English term; the phrase survives only in its anglicized descendant, "biscuit."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as such, but "biscuit" is derived directly from this Latin phrase via Old French, denoting a hard, twice-baked bread or cake.
The legal interest in this term is not the bread itself but the regulatory context: medieval assizes of bread fixed prices, weights, and qualities for named bread types, making precise terminology a matter of legal enforcement rather than culinary description.
Why It Matters in Research
Bis coctus is a narrow, archaic term encountered almost exclusively in sources touching on the medieval assize of bread — the English regulatory scheme governing the price, weight, and composition of bread sold commercially. Researchers working in early English legal history, food regulation, or manorial court records may encounter the term in its Latin form when primary sources such as Fleta or Britton are consulted directly.
The principal trap is treating the term as merely antiquarian curiosity. In context, the assize of bread was an active and frequently enforced regulatory mechanism, and the classification of bread — whether it was simenel, wastel, or another type — determined the legal standard applicable to the baker. A baker charged under the assize would be judged against the specific grade of bread he had contracted or represented to sell. Bis coctus / simenel occupied a defined place in that hierarchy.
Because the term does not survive in any modern legal usage, it will not appear in post-medieval sources. Researchers should confine searches to pre-1500 English legal and chronicle materials, and to the specific treatises Fleta and Britton, where the term is confirmed. Secondary literature on the assize of bread will generally translate or paraphrase rather than use the Latin term.
The French equivalent — deux foits quit, as recorded in Britton — is useful for cross-referencing Anglo-Norman legal manuscripts, where the French form may appear in place of the Latin.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the sole historical law dictionary source for this term, and his entry is brief but precise. He gives the Latin meaning, identifies the bread type, cites Fleta (lib. 2, c. 9, § 1) and Britton (c. 30) as primary authorities, and notes the Anglo-Norman equivalent. He also traces the term forward to the modern English word "biscuit," which is a useful linguistic bridge for researchers who might otherwise fail to recognize the connection.
No other standard historical law dictionaries — Black's, Bouvier's, Jacob's — appear to have entered this term, which is consistent with its extreme narrowness and the fact that it had no continuing legal application beyond the medieval period. Burrill's inclusion reflects his broader coverage of Law Latin and Anglo-Norman terminology, which gives his dictionary particular value for early English legal research.
The citation to Fleta is the more significant of the two primary sources for legal purposes. Fleta is a late thirteenth-century English legal treatise modeled on Bracton, and its treatment of the assize of bread is one of the more systematic medieval accounts of that regulatory framework. Britton, a roughly contemporary French-language treatise on English law, provides confirmation in the vernacular.
Jurisdictional Note
Bis coctus is a term of old English law with no application in any modern common law or civil law jurisdiction. It is relevant only to English legal history prior to the effective obsolescence of the assize of bread, which lingered formally until the nineteenth century but had long ceased to be practically enforced in the form that would generate this terminology.