DOMESCHE

2 definitions found across Law Mind sources

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DOMESCHEAuthored
The Law Mind • 715 words
Definition
An Anglo-Norman legal term meaning tame or domesticated. Used in medieval English law to describe animals that had been reduced to domestic status, as distinguished from wild or feral animals (ferae naturae). The classification of an animal as domesche carried legal consequences for ownership, theft, and liability, since domesticated animals were capable of being the subject of property rights in a way that wild animals generally were not.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No current entry. The word is obsolete in ordinary English. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as a standalone entry. The root concept survives in "domestic," meaning belonging to the household or tamed. The legal term is essentially a fossilized Anglo-Norman form with no living counterpart in modern English. Researchers should not expect to find it in general-language sources; it belongs entirely to the technical vocabulary of medieval common law.
Common Confusion
DOMESCHE is sometimes encountered in close proximity to DOMESDAY (or Domesdei) in older dictionary and manuscript sources, as Burrill's entry illustrates. The two terms are unrelated. Domesday derives from doom and day (judgment day), referring to the great survey record of 1086–1087. Domesche derives from a root meaning tame or household. The visual and phonetic proximity has caused occasional misreading in transcription and cataloguing of historical legal manuscripts.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard rather than a working legal concept for most researchers. Its primary significance is classificatory: in medieval English law, the tame/wild distinction governed whether an animal could be stolen (and thus whether larceny had been committed), who bore liability for injuries the animal caused, and how ownership was established or lost. Researchers working in early common law sources — Year Books, Britton, Bracton, Fleta — will encounter this term and its cognates. The controlling citation in Burrill is Britton, chapter 24. Britton is a late thirteenth-century law treatise written in Anglo-Norman French, so the term appears in its natural linguistic habitat there. A practical trap: digitized full-text searches for "domestic" animals in historical legal databases will not retrieve domesche. Conversely, searching for domesche will not return later sources that have migrated to Latinized or anglicized equivalents. Researchers must bridge the vocabulary gap manually when tracing this doctrine across periods. The doctrine underlying the term persists in modern law under the heading of domestic versus wild animals, with ongoing relevance to strict liability for animal attacks and to property law governing ownership of animals. The vocabulary, however, is entirely modernized. No jurisdiction uses domesche as operative legal language today.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is spare: it gives the Law French origin, the meaning (tame; domesticated), and a single citation to Britton chapter 24. This is consistent with the term's narrow technical function — it is a classificatory adjective, not the name of a doctrine or cause of action, and so historical dictionaries treat it briefly. No significant divergence appears among historical dictionary sources because coverage is thin. The term does not appear to receive treatment in later English dictionaries such as Tomlin's or Bouvier's, which suggests it had already receded from active legal usage by the time those works were compiled. Researchers should not expect Burrill's entry to be corroborated or expanded by later standard references; Britton itself is the primary source.
Jurisdictional Note
Domesche as a term is confined to English legal history and has no American statutory or case law usage. The underlying tame/wild animal distinction, however, is recognized across common law jurisdictions in both the United States and England, operating under modernized vocabulary.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Domesday Book Law Mind Encyclopedia — Medieval English Land Law Law Mind Encyclopedia — Animals (Property and Liability)
Related Terms
Ferae naturae — wild animals; the counterpart classification to domesche Mansuetae naturae — animals of a tame nature; the Latinized equivalent concept Domitae naturae — domesticated animals; Latin form used in later common law sources Domesday — unrelated termincluded here only to flag the confusion risk Britton — the primary source text for this term Animals (strict liability) — the modern doctrinal descendant of the tame/wild classification Property in animals — parent concept governing ownership rights over animal species
DOMESCHEmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867
L. Fr. Tame; domesticated. Britt. c. 24. DOMESDAY, Doomsday, Domesdei. [from dome or doom, judgment, and day. See infra.] An ancient English record, made in the time of William the Conqueror, and by his command, containing the details of a great survey of the kingdom, including all the demesne lands of the crown, and completed A. D. 1086, or 1087. 1087. It consists of two volumes, a greater and a less; the greater containing a survey of all the lands in England, (embracing thirty counties,) except the counties of Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and a part of Lancashire, which were not surveyed, and also Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, which are comprehended in the lesser volume. 2 Bl. Com. 49, 99. Spelman, voc. Domesdei. Cowell. Blount. Ducange. Crabb's Hist. 52, 53. The original Domesday book is still in existence, fair and legible, and is preserved in the Chapter House at Westminster. It was formerly kept with great care in the Exchequer, under three locks. Spelman. It is now printed, (its publication having been commenced in 1767, and completed in 1783,) and copies may be found in public libraries in this country, but being in the Latin of the times, with numerous contractions and abbreviations, its perusal is a work of very considerable difficulty. * In old Scotch law. Judgment; sentence; doom. 1 Pitc. Crim. Trials, part 2, p. 30. See a form of dome of forfeiture. Id. part 1, p. 132; part 2, p. 8. The reversal of judgment or sentence was called ** This venerable record, which Spelfalsing of domes. Cowell, voc. Domesmen. man calls monumentum totius Britanniæ In criminal cases, the dome was proabsque controversia augustissimum, was nounced by an officer of the court called anciently known in Latin by various names, dempster, or doomster. 1 How. St. all indicating the general object of its comTrials, 927. See Dempster. It con-pilation; as Liber Judiciarius, (the judg-

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