Definition
A Law French phrase meaning "rehearse the concord, or peace." In the ancient English procedure for levying fines — a formal method of conveying title to land through fictitious litigation — criez la peez was the command by which a justice directed the serjeant or countor (a pleader or court officer in attendance) to recite aloud the concord: the agreed terms of settlement between the parties regarding the lands to be conveyed. The phrase functioned as a verbal cue triggering the public recitation of the agreement at the heart of the fine.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is encountered almost exclusively in sources dealing with the medieval and early modern English procedure for levying fines, which persisted in modified form until the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833 abolished the practice in England. Researchers working in early English land law, conveyancing history, or manorial records may encounter the phrase in procedural descriptions or in treatises explaining how title passed under the fine system. It will not appear in American legal materials except as an explanatory historical reference. The term is of negligible practical significance today but is essential for parsing primary and secondary sources describing the levying of fines — a procedure whose terminology is dense with Law French and Latin formalism. Researchers should note that "fine" in this context has no connection to a monetary penalty; confusion between the two senses of the word is the most common trap in reading these sources without preparation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both the first and second editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement on this term: all three define it identically as the justice's direction to the serjeant or countor to recite the concord between the parties. Burrill adds a citation to the Statute Modus Levandi Fines (18 Edw. I, st. 4) and to Coke's Second Institutes, which provides the more authoritative procedural grounding, as well as a reference to Reeve's History of English Law — the same Reeve citation reproduced in both Black's editions. No meaningful divergence exists among the three sources. None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the broader procedure of levying fines beyond what is necessary to explain this specific phrase, so researchers needing fuller context should consult Reeve's History of English Law or Coke's Second Institutes directly. The term is a good example of a category of Law French entries in these dictionaries that are essentially fossil records of abolished procedure, preserved as reference points for reading older materials rather than as living legal concepts.
Jurisdictional Note
Strictly an English legal term. The procedure for levying fines was a creature of the English common law courts and was never transplanted as a formal procedure into American law. American legal dictionaries that carry the term do so for historical and interpretive reference only.