Definition
In old English law, to cocket — that is, to furnish goods with a cocket, the official seal or certificate issued by a customs house confirming that duties on exported goods had been duly paid. The term appears in medieval Latin legal records as a verb form, with the passive construction *cokettari* meaning "to be cocketted," indicating that goods had been certified through the customs process. The phrase *lana ponderata et cockettata, customatæ* — wool weighed, cocketted, and customed — illustrates the term's practical context: the sequential steps of weighing, sealing, and formally recording dutiable goods before export.
Common Confusion
COCKETTARE should not be confused with the noun COCKET itself, which refers to the physical seal, document, or customs office rather than the act of certifying. The verb form describes the process; the noun describes the instrument or institution. Researchers encountering either form in medieval English records should understand them as related but grammatically and functionally distinct.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is exclusively a historical legal term found in medieval and early modern English administrative and customs records, particularly in the context of the wool trade, which was the dominant export commodity of medieval England and the primary subject of customs regulation. Researchers will encounter *cockettare* and its cognates in Latin rolls, exchequer records, and pleading registers — most notably the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) cited by Burrill.
The term is unlikely to appear in post-medieval sources, and its relevance is confined almost entirely to pre-17th-century English legal and commercial records. Researchers working on the history of English customs law, the Staple trade, or wool export regulation should treat *cockettare* as a marker of formal customs compliance — its appearance in a document signals that the transaction passed through official royal customs channels rather than evading them.
Because the term is Latin and verb-form, researchers unfamiliar with medieval Latin legal writing may encounter it without recognizing it as a distinct legal concept. It may appear in contracted or abbreviated form in manuscript sources. Understanding that the root is *cokettum* (the cocket, or customs seal) is essential for correctly expanding abbreviations and interpreting the surrounding commercial or legal context.
Cross-referencing with the noun COCKET and related customs terminology — CUSTOMED, STAPLE, POUNDAGE — will typically be necessary to reconstruct the full procedural picture any given record is describing.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source for this entry, and its treatment is brief but precise. Burrill defines *cockettare* through its passive form *cokettari* and grounds the definition in the Registrum Omnium Brevium, a reliable authority for old English writ and administrative practice. The illustrative phrase *lana ponderata et cockettata, customatæ* efficiently captures the term's operational meaning: wool that has been weighed, certified by cocket, and formally customed represents the completed customs process.
No broader synthesis across historical dictionary sources is possible from available materials. Older legal dictionaries such as Cowell's *Interpreter* and Blount's *Nomo-Lexicon* address cocket and related customs vocabulary but do not appear to treat *cockettare* as a separate verbal entry, reflecting the term's narrow technical usage rather than any ambiguity about its meaning. Jacob's Law Dictionary and Tomlin's similarly focus on the noun form. The absence of the verb from these sources does not indicate obscurity so much as the fact that legal dictionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries were less focused on medieval Latin administrative verbs than on terms still in active legal use.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to the English customs system and has no recognized counterpart in Scots, Irish, or continental legal traditions. It is a term of English administrative and commercial law only, relevant to records generated by royal customs administration in England and its wool export trade.