Definition
An obsolete unit of weight used in medieval English law to measure lead. A charrus consisted of thirty pigs (fotmelli), each pig containing six stone less two pounds, with each stone reckoned at twelve pounds. The term appears in legal and administrative records relating to the trade and taxation of lead, a commercially significant commodity in medieval England.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An alternative form of carrus, a Latin term for a type of cart or wagon, and by extension a cartload as a unit of measure.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered.
The gap between the common and legal meaning here is one of precision rather than kind. In ordinary Latin usage, carrus and its variants referred broadly to a cart or cartload — an informal, load-dependent measure. In English legal usage, charrus acquired a fixed, statutory character with defined sub-units (the fotmel, the stone) that transformed a vernacular approximation into an instrument of legal accountability, particularly for the lead trade.
Common Confusion
Charrus is closely related to, and sometimes confused with, carectata. Burrill notes that charrus "seems to have been sometimes written carectata," suggesting the two terms were used interchangeably in some sources. However, carectata more commonly referred to a cartload as a general unit of land or commodity measurement, while charrus appears to have carried a more specific technical definition tied to lead. Researchers encountering either term in medieval English records should not assume identical meanings without verifying context.
Why It Matters in Research
Charrus is a narrow, highly specialized term appearing almost exclusively in records concerning the medieval English lead trade — mining accounts, customs rolls, and administrative tallies. Several research traps are worth noting.
First, the term's rarity means it will not appear in most legal dictionaries; Burrill is one of the few English-language legal reference works to define it at all, and even there the entry is brief and dependent on Fleta as its primary authority.
Second, the spelling is unstable. Medieval Latin scribal practice produced variants including carrus, carectata, and potentially others. A corpus search limited to the single spelling "charrus" will miss parallel records. Researchers should cast wide nets across spelling variants when working with medieval administrative Latin.
Third, the internal arithmetic of the unit repays attention. The definition specifies six stone less two pounds per pig, not a round six stone — a detail that affects any calculation of actual lead weight and that could produce significant discrepancies if the shortfall is overlooked.
Fourth, the fotmel (fotmellus) is the sub-unit. Researchers who encounter fotmel in source material without recognizing its relationship to charrus may fail to connect isolated references into a coherent picture of a single weighing system. The Cowell reference (Cowell's Interpreter) cited by Burrill under "Fotmel" is the natural companion source.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the principal English-language legal dictionary source for this term, and its entry is lean: it supplies the unit's structure, cites Fleta (lib. 2, c. 12, §§ 1, 2) as authority, notes the carectata variant, and directs readers to Cowell for the sub-unit fotmel. Fleta, the thirteenth-century legal treatise, is itself the foundational primary source. No significant divergence among historical legal dictionaries is apparent here, largely because so few cover the term at all. The absence of charrus from later standard dictionaries (Jacob, Tomlins, Black's) reflects both the term's obsolescence and the degree to which specialized medieval commercial vocabulary fell out of general legal reference works over time.
Jurisdictional Note
Charrus is a term of English law specifically and has no known parallel usage in Scots, Irish, or continental legal systems. Its relevance is confined to medieval English administrative and commercial legal records.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Weights and Measures (Historical)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Lead Trade and Medieval Commerce
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Fleta (Treatise)