BOT - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

BOTAuthored

The Law Mind • 935 words

Definition

In historical English law, **bot** (also spelled **bote**) is an archaic term for compensation, satisfaction, or amendment — a payment made to redress a wrong. The term appears across several compound forms, each denoting a specific category of reparation:

1. **Bot (general)**: A remedy or recompense; the amends paid by an offender to satisfy an injury done to another person or to the community. In early Anglo-Saxon and medieval English law, many wrongs that would later become crimes were addressed through scheduled payments rather than punishment, and bot was the conceptual framework for that system.

2. **Manbot**: Compensation paid to a lord for the killing of his man or serf.

3. **Frithbot**: A payment for breach of the peace.

4. **Housbot, Estover, Hedgebot, Ploughbot**: Allowances to a tenant to take wood from land for specific necessary purposes — repair of a house, fencing, or farm implements. These forms survived longest in English property law under the collective heading of *estovers*.

The term is essentially obsolete in modern legal usage. Its legacy persists primarily in the compound *bote* forms found in property law and in historical scholarship on Anglo-Saxon and early common law.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The larva of a botfly, which infests the skin of various mammals, producing warbles, or the nasal passage of sheep, or the stomach of horses.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): See Bots. (Referring to the same parasitic larva.)

The legal term *bot* shares no meaningful relationship with the common English word. The legal term derives from Anglo-Saxon *bōt* (remedy, amends), while the biological term derives from a separate etymological root entirely. A researcher encountering "bot" in a historical legal text should not associate it with the common English word in any of its senses.

Common Confusion

**Bot vs. Bote**: The terms are variant spellings of the same concept and are used interchangeably in historical sources. Researchers will encounter both forms depending on the period and editor of the source consulted. The compound forms (*estovers*, *housebote*, *haybote*, *ploughbote*) are more frequently encountered in property law materials than the root word itself.

**Bot vs. Wergild**: Both are forms of monetary compensation in early English law, but they are not synonymous. Wergild (or wergeld) was the value set upon a person's life — the payment owed to the family of a slain person. Bot was broader, encompassing compensation for injuries, wrongs, and property-related allowances. The two systems operated alongside each other in Anglo-Saxon law.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in early English legal history, Anglo-Saxon law, or medieval property law will encounter *bot* and its compounds in primary and secondary sources. Several navigational points:

**Compound forms dominate**: The bare term *bot* appears less frequently in legal texts than its compounds. Researchers should search for *bote*, *housebote*, *haybote*, *estover*, and *ploughbote* to capture the full scope of the concept in the corpus. Property law materials from the feudal and early common law periods are the richest sources.

**The estovers connection**: The bote compounds in property law — the rights of tenants to take wood for specific purposes — evolved into the doctrine of estovers, which remains a recognized (if rarely invoked) concept in Anglo-American property law. Researchers tracing estovers back through historical sources will pass through the bote forms.

**Penal vs. compensatory systems**: Bot sits at the heart of the historiographical debate about whether early English law understood a distinction between crime and tort. The bot system — in which virtually all wrongs, including homicide, could be satisfied by payment — represents a fundamentally different conception of legal obligation than the later common law's separation of criminal punishment from civil remedy. Sources engaging this debate include Pollock and Maitland's *History of English Law* and Holdsworth's *History of English Law*.

**Anachronism risk**: Researchers reading modern summaries of early English law should be cautious about sources that retroactively impose modern criminal/civil distinctions onto the bot system. Historical dictionaries written in the 19th century sometimes apply Victorian frameworks to Anglo-Saxon material in ways that modern scholarship has revised.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's Law Dictionary does not contain a standalone entry for *bot* in the material provided; the surrounding text concerns *borough*, suggesting the *bot* entry either precedes or follows the sampled passage without appearing in the excerpt. This is a notable gap in the provided source material.

The term is well documented in other historical legal dictionaries. Jacob's *Law Dictionary* and Tomlin's *Law Dictionary* both carry entries for *bot* and its compounds, treating them as components of the Anglo-Saxon system of legal satisfaction. Spelman's *Glossarium* is the foundational scholarly source for the term's Latin and Anglo-Saxon cross-references. Cowell's *Interpreter* discusses *bote* compounds in the property law context.

These sources are largely in agreement that *bot* means compensation or amendment, and that its most practically significant survival in later law was through the property-law bote compounds. None of the standard historical dictionaries treat *bot* as carrying forward any meaningful legal force beyond these compound forms by the early modern period.

Jurisdictional Note

The term *bot* and its compounds are features of English legal history. In American law, the bote compounds never took firm root as recognized doctrines, and *bot* itself is absent from American legal usage. Researchers working in American property law who encounter references to *estovers* should consult English sources for historical depth, as the American materials are sparse.

BOTmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

(219) in this act to signify a corporate town, [i. e. other children of the person dying seised. a town organized for local government,] In some places, this peculiar rule of descent whether sending representatives to parliament or not; a sense which Mr. Stephen considers a novel one. 3 Steph. Com. 191, note (e). In American law, the word borough is, for the most part, disused. In some states, however, as in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, it is still commonly applied to incorporated towns or villages. 23 Connecticut R. 128. 24 Id. 299. In New-York, the term is unknown to the statute law, although, before the revolution, boroughs were frequently chartered. By royal charter of 16th April, 8 Will. III. the town of Westchester was made "a free borough, and town corporate,' to be called "the borough and town of Westchester," to be governed by a mayor, aldermen and common council. 2 Bolton's Hist. of Westchester, 189. is confined to the case of children; in others, the custom extends to brothers and other male collaterals. Third Real Property Report, p. 8, cited in 1 Steph. Com. 199, note (n). BOROUGH-HEAD, Borow-head. The chief man or head of a borough. Cowell. See Head borough. BOROUGH-HOLDER, Borow-holder. See Borhealder, Borsholder. (220) A compensation, amends, or recompense. le keil del neif, et le neif oblige al payment Lamb. Explic. cited in Cowell. A satisfacde ceo, &c.; bottomry is when money is tion or composition paid under the Saxon borrowed upon the keel of a ship, and the laws, in expiation of an offence. Spelman. ship is bound to the payment of it, &c. Skene de Verb. Sign. Cowell. Co. Litt. Latch, 252. See Bottomry. 127 a. Man bote, mag bot, kins bot, frithes BOTTOMRY, Bottomary, Bottomree, bot, (qq. v.); satisfaction for the death of Bottom-rhea. [Dutch bomerie, bodemery; a vassal or kinsman, or for breach of the Germ. bodmerei; L. Fr. bottomage; Fr. peace. Spelman. contrat a la grosse aventure; Lat. fœnus In English law. An allowance; other-nauticum, pecunia trajectitia.] In maritime wise called estover or estovers, (qq. v.) law. An agreement entered into by the *** The_word_bote (sometimes written boot,) is of frequent occurrence in ancient English law, but usually in combination with other words, as above. It is still retained in English and American jurisprudence, as a component of the words housebote, ploughbote, cartbote, hedgebote and firebote, partly in its ancient sense of reparation or replenishment, and partly in the secondary or general sense of a sufficient allowance; being synonymous with the word estovers.* Co. Litt. 41 b. Thus, housebote signifies an allowance of wood to a tenant for the purpose of repairing his house, (in ædium refectionem); ploughbote and cartbote, for making and repairing his instruments of husbandry; haybote or hedgebote, for repairing his hedges; and firebote, for maintaining or replenishing his fire. Spelman. 2 Bl. Com. 35. 1 Steph. Com. 241. See Cartbote, Firebote, Haybote, Housebote, Ploughbote.

BOTn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

See Bots.

botnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

The larva of a botfly, which infests the skin of various mammals, producing warbles, or the nasal passage of sheep, or the stomach of horses.

botverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To bugger. | To ask for and be given something with the direct intention of exploiting the thing’s usefulness, almost exclusively with cigarettes.

botnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A physical robot. | A piece of software designed to perform a task (often a minor but repetitive one) automatically or on command, especially when operating with the appearance of a (human) user profile or account. | A computer-controlled character in a video game, especially a multiplayer one. | A supremely unskilled player. | A person with no ability to think for themselves; (by extension) an unintelligent or contemptible person.

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