Definition
In Law French, *boys* (also rendered *bois*) means wood, timber, or brushwood. The term appears in medieval and early modern legal texts as a property descriptor, denoting wooded land or the timber and underwood growing on it. It is not a term of modern legal art and survives almost exclusively in archaic land grants, forest law records, and feudal conveyances.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of *boy*; male children or young males.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Male children; youths; also used colloquially for men in informal or familiar address.
The gap here is complete. The English word *boys* and the Law French term *boys* are false cognates — identical in spelling, entirely unrelated in meaning. A researcher encountering *boys* in a medieval conveyance or forest court record should not read it as a reference to persons. It describes land character or standing timber, not individuals.
Common Confusion
The orthographic identity of the Law French *boys* (wood) and the English *boys* (plural of boy) is a genuine trap in historical sources. Medieval and early modern legal manuscripts used Law French extensively alongside Latin and Middle English, often without signaling the language shift. A phrase such as *cum boys et bruera* means "with wood and heath" — not a reference to persons. Researchers unfamiliar with Law French vocabulary may misread property descriptions entirely.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research risk is misreading archival land records, forest eyres, manorial surveys, and early conveyances. *Boys* as a property term appears in contexts describing the composition of a tenement or manor — what timber rights attached, what underwood was reserved to the lord, and what the grantee could take. Getting this wrong distorts the entire transaction.
In the Law Mind corpus, this term is most likely to surface in:
- Forest law materials and records of the royal forests
- Feudal tenure documents describing the incidents of woodland holdings
- Early English real property conveyances using Law French formulas
- Glossaries and abridgments of medieval property law
Researchers should also note that Law French woodland vocabulary is granular. *Boys* is a general term; related terms distinguish standing timber (*timber*), underwood cut on rotation (*subbois* or *underwood*), and the right to take wood (*estovers*). Black's entry does not develop these distinctions, so reliance on it alone will underserve research into forest or woodland rights.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) gives the bare definition: "L. Fr. wood; timber; brush." This is accurate as far as it goes but offers no contextual development. It does not situate the term within forest law, explain its use in conveyancing formulas, or cross-reference the body of Law French woodland vocabulary that a researcher would need to interpret a real document. No divergence among sources is at issue here — the term is unambiguous in the historical legal lexicon — but the thinness of the Black's entry means it functions only as a first alert, not a research foundation. Researchers needing depth should consult Law French glossaries and specialized works on English forest law and medieval land tenure.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Forest Law; Law French; Timber Rights and Estovers