Definition
An Old Law French term meaning "fallen down," "gone to ruin," or "gone to decay." Used in medieval and early common law pleading to describe something that has deteriorated, collapsed, or failed — whether a physical structure, a legal interest, or a procedural position. The term belongs to a cluster of related Law French expressions rooted in the verb deschuer (to fall out, to happen, to fall down), and appears in sources primarily as a descriptor in pleading and property contexts.
Why It Matters in Research
DESCHEIEZ is a pure Law French relic, and researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in medieval English legal records, Year Books, and early abridgments — not in modern legal practice. The term has no living doctrinal significance but functions as a key to unlocking meaning in archaic pleadings, conveyancing documents, and property disputes where physical or legal "ruin" was at issue.
The most important navigational point is the semantic cluster surrounding this word. Burrill links DESCHEIEZ directly to the verb DESCHUER and to the phrase "descheu de sa plaint" — meaning a party who "falls from his plaint," i.e., fails in it or loses the benefit of his action. Researchers working in early pleading records should treat these three forms as functionally related: the same root concept of "falling" applies both to physical decay and to procedural failure or loss. A researcher who encounters any of these forms in a source should cross-check all three.
The term also appears adjacent in Burrill to DESCLOR (disclosed; set forth), which is unrelated in meaning but may appear in proximity in original sources due to alphabetical arrangement. Do not conflate these on the basis of page proximity in early dictionaries.
Researchers using digitized versions of Year Books or plea rolls should note that Law French spelling was highly unstable. Variant spellings of DESCHEIEZ may render keyword searches unreliable. Searching for root forms (desche-, deschu-) will capture more variants than searching the full term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole source supporting this entry, and it provides only a brief gloss, attributing the definition to Kelham's Law French Dictionary — itself one of the primary reference tools for Law French in the common law tradition. Burrill's entry is a relay citation: Burrill cites Kelham, not an original legal authority.
This is typical of how Law French terms survive into the 19th-century legal dictionary tradition. The terms were no longer in active use; lexicographers were preserving them for historical comprehension rather than doctrinal application. Researchers should treat the definition as philologically reliable for purposes of reading old documents but should not assume the term carried a fixed technical meaning with consistent legal consequences across all periods or jurisdictions.
No other major historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — including Jacob's Law Dictionary, Tomlin's Law Dictionary, or Cowell's Interpreter — are identified as sources for this specific entry.
Jurisdictional Note
Law French was the working language of English common law courts from roughly the Norman Conquest through the late 17th century. DESCHEIEZ and its related forms are therefore relevant primarily to English legal history and, by extension, to jurisdictions whose law descends from the English common law tradition. The term has no recognized role in civil law, Scottish law, or other traditions.