Definition
An Anglo-French legal term with two related meanings: (1) to drive, compel, or oblige a person to do something; and (2) to chase or hunt. In medieval legal usage, chacer appeared in writs and instruments where the authority to compel or pursue was being exercised. The term belongs to the vocabulary of early common law procedure and the law of the chase, both of which relied heavily on Law French.
The related term chacurus, noted in historical sources alongside chacer, denoted a horse used in the chase, or alternatively a hound or courser — anchoring the hunting sense of chacer firmly in the context of forest law and the regulation of hunting rights.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not a current English word. No entry in modern general dictionaries.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded. The term had already passed out of common English use before the nineteenth century.
Editorial note: Chacer is pure Law French with no surviving common English counterpart. The English word "chase" shares the same root, but chase in ordinary modern use carries none of the legal compulsion sense that chacer carried in early common law instruments.
Common Confusion
Chacer and chacurus are sometimes run together in historical sources. They are distinct: chacer is a verb or verbal noun denoting the act of driving, compelling, or hunting; chacurus is a noun denoting the animal used in the hunt. Researchers scanning older glossaries should also be alert to chase, which in English legal usage referred to an open hunting ground (a recognized property right), and which is etymologically related to chacer but legally and conceptually separate.
Why It Matters in Research
Chacer is a term of historical and archival significance rather than active modern doctrine. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in three contexts:
First, in medieval writs and pleadings written in Law French, where the compulsion sense overlaps with the vocabulary of process — driving or compelling a defendant to appear or comply. Distinguishing whether chacer in a particular instrument means to compel (procedural sense) or to hunt (forest law sense) requires attention to surrounding context.
Second, in forest law and hunting rights materials. The law regulating hunting in medieval England was elaborate, and the vocabulary of the chase — chacer, chacurus, chase, free chase — forms a connected cluster. A researcher working on rights of chase or free warren will encounter this term and its cognates.
Third, in historical legal dictionaries themselves, where chacer often appears as a brief gloss with cross-references to related terms. Rapalje & Lawrence is notable for embedding chacurus in the same entry, then abruptly transitioning to unrelated material (Chain, Chancery offices), which reflects the compressed format of those compilations and can mislead researchers into thinking the terms are more closely connected to what follows than they are.
No modern statutory or case law application exists. The term's research value is entirely historical.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence agree on the two-part definition — compel or oblige, and chase or hunt — and all trace the term to Law French. Rapalje & Lawrence cites Burrill for the compulsion sense and Wharton for chacurus, providing the only sourcing among the standard shelf dictionaries.
What the historical dictionaries do not do is explain which sense predominated in practice or in which classes of documents each meaning appeared. They treat chacer as a definitional unit without contextual guidance. Researchers needing to interpret the term in a specific historical instrument will find the dictionaries necessary but not sufficient — primary source context is essential to disambiguate the two meanings.
None of the historical dictionaries flag the connection to the English property concept of a chase (an unenclosed hunting ground held by franchise), though the etymological and conceptual relationship is direct. That gap can mislead researchers who encounter chacer in forest law materials and do not recognize the link.