Definition
A bruise; a contusion of the body resulting from external force without breaking the skin. The term appears in medieval Latin legal texts as a descriptor of a specific category of physical injury in cases involving assault, battery, or wounding.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *brussura* will find it almost exclusively in medieval and early common law sources, particularly Bracton's *De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae*. It belongs to a cluster of Latin injury terms — alongside *plaga* (wound), *vulnus* (wound penetrating the skin), and *mayhemium* (mayhem) — used by Bracton and his contemporaries to classify the severity and legal character of bodily harm. The distinction between a bruise (*brussura*) and a wound (*plaga* or *vulnus*) carried procedural and remedial weight in medieval pleading: the nature of the injury affected what action lay and what damages might be recovered.
The term will not appear in modern statutory or case law and should be treated as purely archival vocabulary. If you encounter it in a manuscript or early printed source, its presence signals engagement with the Bractonian tradition of systematizing physical injuries. Cross-check surrounding Latin terms carefully, as medieval scribal abbreviations can cause *brussura* to be confused with related injury vocabulary.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the entry in minimal form: "L. Lat. A bruise. Bract. fol. 122." This is a straight translation with a single source reference. No other major historical law dictionaries in the standard shelf — not Black's, not Bouvier's, not Tomlin's — appear to carry a discrete entry for *brussura*, suggesting the term was recognized as sufficiently specialized and archaic that only Burrill, with his particular attention to Latin law vocabulary, thought it worth cataloguing.
The Bracton citation (fol. 122) is the authoritative anchor. Bracton's treatment of injuries to the person distinguishes grades of harm, and *brussura* occupies the lower end of that spectrum — harm visible on the surface of the body but not penetrating it. This gradation reflects the influence of Roman and canon law classifications of *iniuria* on early English common law thinking about bodily harm.
The historical record is thin because the term's utility was essentially exhausted once English legal pleading shifted from Latin to the vernacular and as the common law developed more flexible pleading for trespass to the person.
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