Definition
An Anglo-French (Law French) adverbial expression meaning "from henceforth," "from the present moment," "even now," or "forthwith." The term appears in medieval English legal pleading and court records as a temporal marker indicating immediacy or the point from which some legal condition, right, or obligation is to be reckoned. It carries the sense of "from this time forward" or "as of now," depending on context.
Why It Matters in Research
DESMAINTENANT is a Law French term encountered almost exclusively in Year Book materials and early English common law records predating widespread use of English in legal proceedings. Researchers working in medieval pleading records, Year Books, or treatises that draw on Year Book sources should recognize this term as a temporal expression rather than a substantive legal concept. It functions as a procedural or drafting word — marking the moment from which a legal consequence runs — rather than naming a doctrine, cause of action, or estate.
The principal research trap is misreading the term as a proper noun or as a term of art with independent legal weight, when it is better understood as the Law French equivalent of "henceforth" or "immediately." Its significance is almost always contextual: what matters is what follows the word, not the word itself.
Because DESMAINTENANT appears in close proximity to related Law French vocabulary in the same sources — including DESMARIE and DESMARIETZ (meaning "unmarried") — researchers should take care not to conflate entries in Burrill or Kelham's Law French dictionary where terms appear clustered by alphabetical or phonetic proximity rather than by doctrinal relationship.
For researchers using Law Mind's corpus of historical legal dictionaries, this term illustrates a category of entries that are linguistic artifacts of the Year Book period rather than living legal concepts. Its presence in a document dates the source or signals direct derivation from medieval English court practice.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary English-language legal dictionary source for this term, citing Robert Kelham's Dictionnaire de la Langue Françoise Normande (a Law French glossary) as the supporting authority. Burrill renders the term's meanings as "from henceforth," "from the present moment," "even now," and "forthwith" — a tight cluster of temporal senses that do not materially conflict with one another. The variation in translation reflects the range of contexts in which the word appeared in pleading, not ambiguity in the term's core meaning.
No significant divergence among historical dictionary sources is apparent, largely because the term's coverage is sparse: Kelham remains the foundational reference, and Burrill follows Kelham without independent elaboration. Modern legal dictionaries do not carry this term, which confirms its status as a purely historical lexical entry with no survival in contemporary legal usage.
The juxtaposition of DESMAINTENANT with DESMARIE in Burrill's entry sequence is an artifact of the source's organization and should not be read as indicating any doctrinal connection between the two terms.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is specific to the English common law tradition and its Law French pleading heritage. It has no application in civil law jurisdictions and no modern statutory or common law relevance in any jurisdiction.