COUNTEZ - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

COUNTEZAuthored

The Law Mind • 604 words

Definition

A Law French command meaning "count" or "reckon." In old English court practice, *countez* was a direction given by the clerk of the court to the crier immediately after a jury was sworn, instructing the crier to number the jurors. By Blackstone's era, the term had been rendered in plain English as "count these," though the archaic Law French form persisted in legal records and procedural accounts well before that transition.

Common Confusion

*Countez* is easily conflated with the family of related Law French terms — *count* (a pleading unit), *countor* or *countour* (a professional pleader in early English courts), and *counter* (in various procedural senses). These terms share a common root but refer to distinct concepts: *countez* is a specific verbal direction in jury procedure; *count* is a unit of pleading in a declaration; *countor* is a person, the forerunner of the barrister. Burrill's entry runs these terms together in sequence, which can mislead a researcher scanning quickly. Treat them as distinct entries requiring separate analysis.

Why It Matters in Research

This is a procedural artifact term. Researchers encountering *countez* in medieval or early modern English court records — particularly Year Books, plea rolls, or treatises on jury procedure — should recognize it as a ritualized verbal formula, not a substantive legal command with ongoing doctrinal significance. Its appearance marks the moment in trial procedure when the jury was formally constituted and numbered, a step that carried real procedural weight in an era when jury composition was closely scrutinized.

The term is effectively extinct in living practice. Any appearance in sources after the eighteenth century is almost certainly antiquarian or historical in character. Researchers working with pre-modern English sources should be alert to the distinction between *countez* as this specific courtroom direction and the broader cluster of related Law French terms — *count*, *countor*, *counter*, *countour* — which carry separate meanings in pleading and legal professional contexts. Burrill's entry gestures toward this cluster but the truncation in available text signals that the full entry continued into those related terms; researchers should follow the cross-reference chain carefully.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's (2nd ed.) and Burrill agree closely on the core definition: a procedural direction from clerk to crier to number a sworn jury, with both citing Blackstone's *Commentaries* (4 Bl. Comm. 340) as the primary authority. The agreement here is unsurprising — both dictionaries are drawing from the same Blackstone passage, which itself noted that the Law French formula had already given way to plain English in practice by the late eighteenth century.

Burrill's entry is the richer of the two, situating *countez* within a broader discussion of *countor*, *counter*, and *countour* — related terms rooted in the Law French *conter* (to relate, recite, or state orally) and the Latin *narrare*. This etymological and terminological cluster is significant: it shows that the root concept of "counting" or "recounting" fed into both procedural directions (as in *countez*) and substantive pleading roles (as in *countor*, a pleader or narrator). Black's entry is narrower and treats the term in isolation. Neither source adds material beyond Blackstone; neither is a primary authority.

What both historical dictionaries omit: any discussion of how failure to perform this ritual affected trial validity, or whether the formula appears verbatim in Year Book sources. Researchers needing that level of procedural detail will need to go beyond dictionary sources to the Year Books directly or to Holdsworth's *History of English Law*.

COUNTEZmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

L. Fr. Count, or reckon. In old practice. A direction formerly given by the clerk of a court to the crier, after a jury was sworn, to number them; and which Blackstone says was given, in his time, in good English, "count these." 4 Bl. Com. 340, note (n). Earl. Yearb. T. COUNTOR, Counter, Countour. L. Fr. and Eng. [L. Fr. contour, from counter or conter, to relate, recite or state orally; L Lat. narrator.] In old English practice. An advocate or professional pleader; one who counted for his client, that is, related his case, recited his count, or orally pleaded his cause. * See To count. A term applied in the old books to serjeants at law, who are sometimes termed serjeant countors. 2 Inst. 214. 2 Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, 284, 285. 1 Bl. Com. 24, note (t). Countors sont serjeants sachents la ley del royalme, que servent al common del people à pronouncier et defendre les actions en jugement; countors are serjeants learned in the law of the realm, who serve the common people to prosecute and defend actions in court. Mirr. c. 2, sect. 5. 9 Co. pref. Stat. Mod. Lev. Fines. Conseillers ou countors. Britt. c. 52. See Narrator. * **The banci narratores (countors of the bench) mentioned by Matthew Paris (Hist. p. 1077,) appear to have been ser jeants of the Common Pleas; serjeants having always had the exclusive privilege of practising in that court, which was anciently termed "the Bench." Steph. Pl. Appendix, Note (8). 1 Bl. Com. ub. sup. See Bench, Bancus, Serjeant at law, Nar-. rator. That counting was the peculiar province of serjeants, is shown by the fact of its having so long survived as one of the ceremonies observed on taking that degree. See To count. The word countour occurs in Chaucer's description of the Frankelein :- A shereve hadde he ben, and a countour, Was no wher swiche a worthy vavasour. Some copies, according to Selden, have coronour in this passage instead of countour, and coronour is preferred by the author of the note on 2 Bl. Com. 347, for the singular reason that the office of an accountant was inconsistent with the character.