Definition
An Anglo-Norman Law French term meaning "every one" or "every." Used in medieval and early modern English legal texts to express universality or totality — that a provision, obligation, or right applies to each and every person, article, or point without exception. The term appears in formal legal instruments and statutory texts drawn from the Norman French legal vocabulary that dominated English law from the Conquest through the late medieval period.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *chescun* in primary sources are working with materials almost certainly predating the gradual displacement of Law French from English legal writing, a process largely complete by the late seventeenth century. The term is a navigational signal: its presence dates a document or fixes it within a tradition of formal Norman-derived drafting. Because *chescun* functions as a universal quantifier — equivalent to "each and every" in modern drafting — its scope in a given instrument is legally significant. A provision qualified by *chescun* was intended to leave no exceptions. Researchers parsing the reach of a medieval charter, ordinance, or plea roll entry should treat *chescun* as a term of comprehensiveness, not mere emphasis.
The term also appears in compounds and set phrases. Burrill records *en chescun article et chescun point* — "in every article and every point" — drawn from the *Articuli super Cartas*, a statute of Edward I confirming Magna Carta and the Forest Charter. Researchers working with that instrument or its commentary will encounter this phrase as a standard expression of the confirmatory clause's intended scope. Missing the meaning of *chescun* in that context could cause a researcher to misread the breadth of a medieval confirmatory guarantee.
Law French vocabulary is inconsistently indexed in modern finding aids and legal databases. Variant spellings are common across manuscripts and printed editions. Researchers should expect to encounter *chescun*, *chesqun*, *chacun*, and related forms depending on the scribe, period, and printed edition consulted.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source providing a formal entry, and it is sufficient for the term's scope. Burrill defines *chescun* concisely as "every one; every" and supplies the illustrative phrase from the *Articuli super Cartas*, c. 1 — a real and well-documented statute from 1300. No substantive divergence exists among historical sources on this point because the term is stable in meaning: it is a straightforward Law French universal quantifier with no contested or shifting legal significance. Jacob's Law Dictionary, Tomlin's Law Dictionary, and Bouvier's Law Dictionary do not appear to carry a dedicated entry, which is unremarkable given that these later works reduced their Law French vocabulary coverage as the terms fell out of active use.
What historical sources collectively omit is any guidance on variant spellings or the full range of documentary contexts in which the term appears — a gap that matters more to the manuscript researcher than to the practitioner for whom these dictionaries were primarily written.
Jurisdictional Note
Law French terms including *chescun* were part of the shared legal vocabulary of England and, derivatively, the early American colonies insofar as they received English common law. The term has no modern jurisdictional application; its relevance is confined to historical English legal materials.