Definition
Latin and Law French. Literally, "of high and low." A phrase used in medieval English legal practice to signify the complete and unconditional submission of all disputes between parties to arbitration — covering matters great and small, without reservation. When parties agreed de alto et basso, they bound themselves to accept the arbitral outcome across the full range of their differences, surrendering any right to hold back particular claims or categories of dispute from the arbitrator's authority.
Common Language
The phrase has no meaningful foothold in modern ordinary English. "Alto" survives in contemporary usage primarily as a musical term denoting a vocal range; "basso" similarly denotes a low musical voice. Neither Webster's 1913 nor modern general dictionaries treat the combined phrase as an English idiom. The legal phrase operates entirely within its Latin and Law French register and carries no risk of confusion with lay usage.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archival and historical term. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in:
1. Medieval and early modern English legal texts, particularly materials touching the Statute of Wales (12 Edw. I), where the phrase appears in connection with submission to arbitral or royal jurisdiction over disputes in the Welsh marches and newly organized Welsh territories.
2. Treatises on the history of English arbitration law. Reeves' History of English Law (cited by Burrill) is the primary secondary source locating this phrase in its procedural context. Researchers tracing the pre-modern development of arbitration doctrine should treat this phrase as a marker for the period before arbitration was systematically regulated by statute.
3. Cowell's Interpreter, which multiple historical dictionaries cite as the defining authority. Researchers working with early modern legal dictionaries will find Cowell the most direct primary source for the phrase's definition and usage.
The practical research trap: because arbitration doctrine has been so thoroughly transformed by modern statute and common law development, the phrase de alto et basso has no operative role in contemporary practice. It appears in historical sources as a term of art signaling unconditional submission, which distinguishes it from later forms of arbitration agreement that permitted parties to carve out specific disputes. A researcher reading an early modern submission agreement or arbitral award who encounters this phrase should understand it as the strongest possible form of submission — not a limited reference.
The Law French variant, de haut et de bass, appears in some sources (Burrill flags this explicitly) and refers to the same concept. Researchers working across Latin and Law French sources should note both forms to avoid treating them as distinct doctrines.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition, all tracing back to Cowell. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, and Burrill's are effectively uniform: the phrase denotes absolute submission of all differences to arbitration. Burrill adds the most research value by providing the Law French equivalent (de haut et de bass), the statutory reference to the Statute of Wales (12 Edw. I), and the citation to Reeves — making Burrill the most useful of the shelf sources for a researcher who wants to pursue the doctrine further. Rapalje & Lawrence offers only a cross-reference and contributes nothing independent.
No historical dictionary attempts to trace the phrase's subsequent legal development or explain why it fell out of use. The phrase is treated as a finished antiquity by all sources, which is itself informative: by the time these dictionaries were compiled, the term had no living procedural application.