Definition
COPIE is a French and Law French term appearing in old English and French legal sources with two distinct meanings:
1. (Copy) A copy or transcript of a legal document. Used in this sense in continental French legal instruments, feudal records, and early English legal proceedings.
2. (Multitude) A great number; a multitude of persons or things. Used in this secondary sense in early English Year Books and related sources.
The first meaning predominates in legal usage and connects directly to the documentary practices of feudal and maritime law. The second meaning is archaic even within historical legal writing and appears primarily as a lexical curiosity.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Copie" is the standard French word for "copy," meaning a reproduction or transcript of an original document or text. It carries no specialized legal weight in modern French.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; the English "copy" is given as a reproduction or transcript of an original writing.
The gap worth noting: In Law French legal usage, copie carried technical weight tied to feudal tenure doctrine, particularly copyhold tenure, where the "copy" of the court roll was the tenant's title document. This is not merely a synonym for a duplicate — it was the operative instrument of a specific form of landholding. The ordinary word "copy" misses this functional significance entirely.
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Common Confusion
COPIE (copy of court roll / document) should not be confused with the modern administrative sense of "copy" as a mere duplicate for record-keeping. In feudal conveyancing, the copie was itself the title — the original court roll entry remained with the lord's court, and the tenant's copie was their proof of right. Losing or lacking a copie was a legal disability, not merely an inconvenience. Researchers encountering the term in Year Books or feudal tenure materials should read it in this operative, not merely documentary, sense.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus will encounter copie primarily in two contexts: maritime law sources (the Ordonnance de la Marine, cited in Burrill as Ord. Mar.) and feudal tenure materials (Littleton's Tenures, Year Books). These are quite different research streams, and the term's meaning shifts accordingly.
In maritime sources, copie functions straightforwardly as a document copy — a transcript of a ship's register, charter, or instrument required for legal proceedings or port clearance.
In feudal tenure sources, and especially in connection with Littleton (sections 73 and 75 deal with copyhold tenure), copie is a term of art that underpins the entire structure of copyhold landholding. Littleton's sections on villenage and copyhold are the essential entry point here. Burrill's citation to Guyot's Institutions Féodales signals the French feudal parallel — researchers comparing English and French feudal tenure systems will find the term bridging both traditions.
The secondary meaning — "a multitude" — surfaces in Year Book entries and is documented by Kelham's Law French dictionary. This meaning has no doctrinal significance and is unlikely to cause confusion in context, but researchers translating Year Book passages should be alert to it.
A practical trap: searching for "copie" in digitized historical sources will surface both meanings without distinction. Context (maritime instrument vs. tenure plea vs. Year Book narrative) is the only reliable guide.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source covering this term, and its entry is concise but structurally useful. Burrill correctly identifies the dual meaning — documentary copy and multitude — and supports both with specific citations. The citation to Littleton sections 73 and 75 is particularly valuable, as it anchors the tenure meaning in the most authoritative English feudal text.
Burrill's reference to Kelham for the "multitude" meaning is appropriate; Kelham's Normand Dictionary is the standard authority for Law French lexicography, and Burrill defers to it rather than elaborating independently. This is sound lexicographic practice.
What Burrill does not address is the operational significance of copie in copyhold doctrine — the fact that the copy was the tenant's title instrument rather than a mere evidentiary duplicate. That dimension must be sourced from Littleton and Coke's commentary directly.
No other standard shelf dictionaries (Jacob, Tomlin, Bouvier, Black) appear to treat copie as a separate headword, likely because by the time English legal dictionaries were standardizing, copyhold terminology had migrated to English forms and the Law French term was primarily of historical interest.
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Jurisdictional Note
Copie as a term of art belongs to English feudal law and French civil and maritime law. It has no direct modern common law equivalent as a term in active use. Copyhold tenure, which gave the term its primary legal force in England, was abolished by the Law of Property Act 1922 and fully extinguished by 1926. Researchers working in American law will encounter the term only in historical materials predating colonization or in scholarly treatments of feudal tenure.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Copyhold; Documentary Evidence
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