Definition
A bombard; a type of early artillery piece or cannon. In medieval and early modern legal usage, the term appears in Latin legal records and statutes to denote a large-bore firearm or siege weapon capable of discharging heavy projectiles. The word was used in legislative enactments, military ordinances, and property inventories to describe this class of weapon as a distinct and legally significant object — particularly in the context of royal armories, forfeiture, contraband, or restrictions on private possession.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Bombard" in modern English refers either to a large medieval cannon or, figuratively, to overwhelm someone with something (e.g., "bombarded with questions"). The weapon sense is largely historical and rarely used outside of military history contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines "bombard" as "a piece of short, thick ordnance, with a large bore," noting its early use in warfare before the development of longer-barreled cannon, and also as a large vessel for liquids such as tar or wine.
The legal meaning tracks the weapon sense closely and does not diverge sharply from it. The significance of the term in legal sources is not in a divergent meaning but in its precise technical and classificatory function: legal documents used *bombarda* to identify a specific category of military hardware for regulatory, proprietary, and penal purposes, where exact identification of the weapon type mattered to the legal outcome.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter *bombarda* almost exclusively in pre-modern Latin legal records — medieval English statutes, continental legal instruments, crown inventories, siege contracts, and military commissions. Several navigational points are worth flagging:
**Latin form.** The term appears in its Latin form *bombarda* in the original documents. Researchers searching early printed compilations or manuscript sources should search the Latin spelling; English-language indexes may not carry the term at all, or may index it under "cannon," "ordnance," or "artillery."
**Burrill's entry is incomplete as reproduced.** The source entry for this dictionary trails off mid-sentence — "In" — suggesting the full definition in Burrill's original text continued with a reference to a specific legal context, statute, or jurisdiction. Researchers using Burrill should consult the original printed volume to recover the full entry, which likely includes a citation to an early English or civil law source.
**Forfeiture and contraband contexts.** Medieval and early Tudor statutes governing armaments sometimes specified weapon types by name. The classification of an item as a *bombarda* rather than a lesser weapon could affect whether a forfeiture provision applied, whether a military contractor had fulfilled a supply obligation, or whether a defendant was charged under a particular ordinance. Exact identification was legally operative.
**Property and inventory records.** In probate, attainder, and forfeiture proceedings, armaments were catalogued. *Bombarda* entries in such records identify specific items whose ownership, transfer, or disposition was at issue. Researchers working with castle or manor inventories from the 14th through 16th centuries may encounter the term in this administrative-legal context.
**Civil law and continental sources.** The term is also present in continental European legal instruments. Researchers in comparative legal history or working with canon law or Roman-inflected sources should note that usage may vary slightly across jurisdictions and periods.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the etymological grounding, deriving *bombarda* from *bombus* (Latin) and *βόμβος* (Greek), both meaning the resonant sound of discharge — the booming report of the weapon. This etymology is standard and consistent with classical and medieval Latin philology.
Burrill's entry, as recovered here, is fragmentary. The entry opens with the Latin form, supplies the etymology, and begins a contextual note ("In —") that is cut off in the source material available to this dictionary. This limits what can be said about Burrill's full treatment. Researchers should not treat the truncated entry as complete legal analysis.
No other historical law dictionaries in the current Law Mind corpus carry an entry for *bombarda*. Jacob's Law Dictionary, Bouvier's, and Black's do not include the term, reflecting that it passed out of active legal use well before the periods those works primarily address. Burrill's broader scope and engagement with Latin legal terminology make it the primary dictionary resource here.
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Jurisdictional Note
*Bombarda* as a legal term is primarily encountered in English and continental European sources from roughly the 14th through the early 16th centuries. By the mid-Tudor period the term had largely given way to more modern weapon nomenclature in legal instruments. No modern jurisdiction uses the term in operative legal documents.
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