Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning to come to a head or reach an agreement concerning property. In its extended form, *chevir de denier* denotes the act of taking up money on loan — that is, borrowing or raising funds by credit. The term appears in medieval English legal records and texts as a shorthand for concluding a transaction or settling a matter, particularly one involving property rights or monetary obligation.
Why It Matters in Research
CHEVIR is a term a researcher is unlikely to encounter outside of medieval or early common law sources — Year Books, plea rolls, and early Anglo-Norman legal texts. Its appearance in a document almost always signals a transaction or dispute resolution context: either a property settlement has been reached or a credit arrangement has been made. Researchers working in medieval property law or early debt instruments should treat the term as a marker of conclusion or agreement, not as a procedural term or a term of art with ongoing doctrinal significance.
The phrase *chevir de denier* is the more practically significant variant. Where it appears, it points to a credit or loan transaction, and researchers should read surrounding text for evidence of the parties, the sum, and any security arrangement. This connects CHEVIR to the broader landscape of early medieval debt law, where the instruments and vocabulary bear little resemblance to modern contract or lending terminology.
Be cautious when using general historical legal dictionaries to gloss Law French terms: many dictionaries of later periods either omit such terms entirely or import anachronistic meanings. Burrill preserves the term but traces it only to Kelham's *Norman Dictionary* — itself an eighteenth-century compilation of older sources. Researchers who need to verify a specific usage should trace back to Kelham directly rather than relying solely on secondary compilations.
CHEVIR has no continuing life in modern legal vocabulary. If the term appears in a document being transcribed or analyzed, it is almost certainly a historical artifact rather than a term with any operative legal force in contemporary practice.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source for this term in the English legal dictionary tradition. Burrill defines CHEVIR as "to come to a head; to come to an agreement touching property," citing Kelham, and separately defines the phrase *chevir de denier* as "to take up money on loan," again on Kelham's authority.
No substantial elaboration appears beyond this in the standard reference shelf. The definition is brief by necessity: CHEVIR was already an archaism when the major English legal dictionaries were compiled in the nineteenth century. Burrill does not record case law or statutory usage for the term, and no developed doctrinal discussion surrounds it. This is a lexical preservation entry rather than a live legal concept.
The absence of this term from later dictionaries — including Black's — is itself informative. It suggests the word did not survive into the period when English legal vocabulary was being systematized and codified in treatises and digests. Researchers should not expect to find CHEVIR in any post-medieval primary source without treating that appearance as anomalous and deserving close examination.