Definition
A Court of Regard was one of the historic English forest courts, convened once every three years for the specific purpose of "lawing" or "expeditation" of dogs kept within or near royal forests. Lawing — also called expeditation — was the removal of three toes from a dog's forefoot, rendering it incapable of chasing deer or other protected game. The court ensured that dogs belonging to persons living within the forest bounds were so mutilated or otherwise rendered harmless to the king's venison. The Court of Regard is now entirely obsolete and belongs exclusively to the history of English forest law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A forest court dealing with issues related to forestland, such as waste and encroachment.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry recorded.
The Wiktionary definition is too broad and inaccurate as a description of this specific court. Waste and encroachment were the business of other forest tribunals — principally the Court of Attachments and the Court of Swainmote. The Court of Regard had a single, narrow function: the lawing of dogs. A researcher relying on the general Wiktionary characterization risks confusing this court with its forest court siblings.
Common Confusion
The English forest system maintained several distinct courts operating in parallel, and they are easily conflated. The Court of Attachments (also called the Woodmote) met every forty days to hear minor forest offenses. The Court of Swainmote met three times yearly to handle matters of vert and venison before a jury of freeholders. The Justice Seat was the highest forest tribunal, presided over by the chief justice in eyre of the forests. The Court of Regard was none of these — it was convened triennialy for the sole purpose of dog lawing. Researchers encountering the term "forest court" in historical sources should not assume they are dealing with the Court of Regard unless the context involves expeditation or the triennial cycle.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear almost exclusively in sources dealing with medieval and early modern English forest law and in historical legal dictionaries. It is not a functioning institution and has generated no modern case law or statutory development. Several research traps are worth noting.
First, the word "regard" here carries no connection to its ordinary meaning of esteem or attention, nor to the separate forest officer known as the "regarder" — though the connection is real and direct. The regarders were the officials responsible for conducting the triennial inspection (the "regard") of the forest, and the Court of Regard was the formal proceeding through which the results of that inspection — particularly the lawing of dogs — were administered. Sources will sometimes discuss the regard as an inspection process and the Court of Regard as its judicial expression; these are related but distinct concepts.
Second, the term "expeditation" cross-references an important companion entry. The physical process of mutilating the dog was called expeditation or lawing, and historical sources use the terms interchangeably. Researchers should pursue expeditation as a separate lookup to understand the substance of what the court actually did.
Third, the triennial cycle matters for dating. If a historical document references a Court of Regard proceeding, it anchors the record to a three-year interval, which may assist in dating undated manuscripts from the forest law era.
Finally, the court's obsolescence was acknowledged by the historical dictionaries themselves — all three source entries mark it as obsolete. It survives only as a subject of legal history and comparative institutional study, not as an operational precedent.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) and Bouvier's Law Dictionary give essentially identical entries, each tracing the court to Stephens' Commentaries and Blackstone's Commentaries. Bouvier adds a reference to Inderwick's King's Peace, which provides additional institutional context unavailable in Blackstone alone. The agreement across all three dictionaries is complete: there is no divergence in definition, function, or assessment of obsolescence. What the historical dictionaries do not provide is any explanation of why the court existed — the broader context of royal forest law, the legal status of venison as the king's property, or the system of regarders who triggered the court's proceedings. Researchers needing that context must look beyond the dictionary entries to the primary treatises on forest law.
Jurisdictional Note
The Court of Regard was an institution of English law with no counterpart in American legal history. American colonies and states did not inherit or adapt the forest court system. This term has no jurisdictional variation to report — it is of historical and comparative interest only.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses English forest courts or the Court of Regard. The available encyclopedia entries — Tax Court Appeals, Family Court Jurisdiction, and Criminal Contempt of Court — are not relevant to this term. Section omitted.