Definition
An archaic Law French term for a charter — that is, a formal written instrument by which rights, interests, or privileges were granted, confirmed, or conveyed. Used in early English legal records and texts, *chartre* is the Law French rendering of what modern law calls a charter or deed. The term appears primarily in medieval English legal materials and carries no independent substantive meaning beyond its identification as the written instrument itself.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Obsolete spelling of *charter*.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No independent entry; subsumed under *charter*, defined as a written instrument given by the sovereign power of a state or country bestowing rights, franchises, or privileges.
The common and legal meanings align closely here, but the gap worth noting is functional: in ordinary modern English, *charter* suggests a constitutive document (a city charter, a corporate charter). In the medieval legal context where *chartre* appears, the term was broader — encompassing any solemn written instrument that clothed a transaction with legal formality, including conveyances between private parties.
Common Confusion
CHARTRE should not be conflated with CHARTE or CARTA, though all three are cognate forms appearing in overlapping historical sources. *Carta* is the Latin form found in formal records and statutes; *chartre* is the Law French form found in treatises and pleading texts; *charter* is the anglicized descendant. Researchers encountering any of these in historical materials are dealing with functionally equivalent terms, but the form used often signals the language register and period of the source.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a historical source artifact. Researchers will encounter *chartre* in Law French legal texts — particularly Britton and similar thirteenth- and fourteenth-century treatises compiled in Anglo-Norman — rather than in modern legal materials. It does not appear in contemporary statutes or case law.
The key navigational point: when Burrill quotes Britton using *chartre*, he is working from a corpus of Law French materials that describe the formal requirements for valid written instruments in early English law. The gloss Burrill provides — "garnement del escrit" (garment or clothing of writing) — reflects the medieval conceptual framework in which writing served as the outward vestment that gave legal form to an underlying transaction. This metaphor of clothing or investment is significant for understanding how medieval jurists conceptualized the relationship between oral transactions and their written memorialization.
Researchers tracing the history of deed formalities, the development of the Statute of Frauds, or the early law of conveyancing will find *chartre* appearing in foundational sources. Its presence signals that a source is drawing on pre-common-law or early common-law English doctrine, often filtered through Norman legal culture.
No meaningful jurisdictional variation applies — this is a term of historical rather than operative law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the primary dictionary source for this term in the Law Mind corpus, and its entry is brief but instructive. Burrill identifies *chartre* as a Law French term, supplies a vernacular definition (charter), and anchors the term in Britton — one of the earliest systematic treatises on English law, attributed to the late thirteenth century. The quoted passage illuminates how the charter was understood not merely as evidence of a transaction but as a formal element — a "garment" — that completed or clothed the legal act.
Other historical dictionaries (Jacob's, Tomlin's, Black's early editions) treat this term either not at all or redirect immediately to *charter*, reflecting the anglicization of the term well before the nineteenth century. No historical source disputes the meaning; the variation is purely in coverage. The term had effectively passed out of active legal use by the time most English legal dictionaries were compiled.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: CHARTERS AND CONVEYANCING INSTRUMENTS; LAW FRENCH IN ENGLISH LEGAL SOURCES; BRITTON AND THE EARLY COMMON LAW TREATISES