Definition
An Anglo-Norman French legal term for a chase or hunting ground — a tract of land set apart for the keeping and hunting of wild animals. The term appears in early English common law as a variant spelling of CHASE, and the two are interchangeable in historical sources. A chace could be held by a private lord as a franchise right, distinct from a royal forest and from a free warren.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Obsolete spelling of "chase."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Refers the reader to the third sense of "chase," meaning an unenclosed hunting ground.
The gap is minimal but worth noting for researchers: in ordinary historical English, "chase" and "chace" were spelling variants of the same word, covering both the act of pursuit and the tract of land used for hunting. In legal usage, the term narrows considerably — it refers specifically to a legally recognized franchise or property right over a defined hunting ground, not merely to the physical activity of pursuit or to any open land.
Common Confusion
CHACE / CHASE / FREE WARREN / FOREST: These four terms describe related but distinct rights in early English property and franchise law. A royal forest was held by the Crown under forest law, with its own courts and officers. A chase was a private hunting franchise, generally unenclosed, held by a subject by royal grant. A free warren was a narrower franchise over smaller game animals on a defined estate. CHACE is simply the Law French spelling of CHASE and carries identical legal content; the terms should not be treated as distinct legal concepts.
Why It Matters in Research
CHACE is an archetype of the problems researchers encounter in medieval and early modern English legal sources. Several navigational points deserve attention:
Spelling instability: Year Books, plea rolls, and early treatises use CHACE and CHASE interchangeably. A corpus search limited to one spelling will miss occurrences of the other. Both forms should be queried.
Law French context: The term appears almost exclusively in Law French passages. Researchers working in translated or modernized sources may find only CHASE; those working in original Year Book materials will encounter CHACE. The Burrill citation to Yearbook P. 10 Edw. (Edward I or II, depending on the volume) illustrates the type of primary source where this spelling is found.
Franchise law connection: The substantive law behind CHACE — who could hold a hunting franchise, how it was granted, how infringement was remedied — is the research target. The spelling is the entry point, not the endpoint. Researchers should move quickly from CHACE to the broader body of franchise law, forest law, and common law property rights in wild animals.
Historical atrophy: CHACE as a term of art disappears from active legal usage well before the modern period. It is encountered almost exclusively in historical legal research, antiquarian legal writing, or disputes over ancient title.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) treats CHACE with a single compressed definition: "L. Fr. A chase or hunting ground." No elaboration is offered, and the entry serves as a pure cross-reference point.
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the most useful entry among the shelf sources. It includes the Year Book quotation — "Tout le bois ou il se pleint est comon chace de touts beasts chaceable a toutz gentz" — which illustrates both the Law French register and the concept of a common chase accessible to all persons, as opposed to a private or exclusive franchise. Burrill also cross-references CHASE, confirming that the terms are synonymous.
What the historical dictionaries miss: none of the shelf sources explains the legal mechanics of how a chase was created, defended, or forfeited, or how it related to forest law, purlieu rights, or the common law of animals. Researchers who need the substantive doctrine rather than just the definition must look beyond the dictionary shelf to Manwood's Treatise of the Forest Laws and the broader Year Book literature.
Jurisdictional Note
CHACE is a term of English common law with no parallel American development. American law did not inherit the English franchise system for hunting grounds; public land law and later wildlife regulation developed along entirely different lines. The term has no operative significance in any current American jurisdiction.