Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning to deny or withhold from another. Used chiefly in the phrase difforciare rectum — to deny justice to a person after having been required to administer it. The term describes an act of official obstruction or refusal by a lord or court that was obligated to provide a legal remedy but failed or refused to do so.
Common Confusion
Burrill notes that difforciare is "perhaps the same with deforciare," and the two terms are easily conflated. Deforciare (or deforce) is the better-attested term in medieval English law and refers to wrongfully withholding property or rights from a person entitled to them. The overlap is real: both involve withholding something to which another is legally entitled. The distinction, where one exists, is that deforciare is primarily used in property contexts — keeping land or goods from the rightful owner — while difforciare carries a specific institutional meaning: the denial of justice by a body or lord under a duty to provide it. Researchers encountering either term in medieval sources should check both entries and weigh context carefully, as scribal variation and loose usage make the boundary between them unreliable.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of deep historical vintage with no modern legal application. Researchers will encounter it only in medieval English legal records, chronicles, or treatises — never in contemporary doctrine. Several research considerations apply.
First, the phrase difforciare rectum is the operative unit. The term almost never appears in isolation in primary sources; it appears as part of this fixed Latin formula. Burrill cites Matthew Paris under the year 1164 as a source, which places its documented use in the context of disputes between ecclesiastical and royal authority during the reign of Henry II. Researchers working on the Becket controversy or the development of royal justice in the twelfth century may encounter it in that context.
Second, the term is a marker for a specific legal complaint — that justice was owed but refused. In the feudal system, lords held judicial obligations to their tenants, and failure to discharge those obligations could trigger escalating remedies, including appeal to a higher lord or the crown. The concept embedded in difforciare rectum is thus an early expression of the principle that denial of justice is itself a legal wrong, a precursor to ideas that eventually crystallized in Magna Carta's prohibition on denying or delaying right or justice.
Third, researchers should note that neither Black's nor Burrill provides extensive elaboration. The entries are brief glosses rather than doctrinal analyses, which means the historical dictionaries function here as pointers to primary sources rather than authoritative treatments. The Matthew Paris citation in Burrill is the only specific primary source reference across all three dictionaries and is worth pursuing for context.
Fourth, the relationship to deforciare is a genuine research trap. Because medieval Latin scribes were not always consistent, a document that appears to use difforciare may be using an orthographic variant of deforciare, or vice versa. Paleographic and contextual analysis is necessary before treating the two as distinct in any specific source.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three dictionaries — Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Burrill — give substantively identical definitions, which suggests that both Black's editions drew directly from Burrill rather than from independent primary research. The only meaningful addition Burrill makes over Black's is the Matthew Paris citation and the explicit note flagging the possible identity with deforciare. Black's omits both, leaving researchers without the primary source anchor and without the cautionary cross-reference.
None of the three dictionaries situates the term within any procedural or institutional framework — they do not explain what remedy followed a difforciare rectum, who had standing to complain, or what forum heard such complaints. Researchers needing that context must turn to secondary scholarship on Anglo-Norman and Angevin legal administration rather than relying on dictionary treatment alone.