DROIT DE GREFFE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

DROIT DE GREFFEAuthored

The Law Mind • 680 words

Definition

A prerogative of the French crown by which the king held the exclusive right to sell or grant offices connected with the custody of judicial records and notarial acts. The term is French, meaning roughly "right of the registry" or "right of the clerk's office" (greffe being the French term for a court registry or clerk's office). As a royal privilege, it allowed the king to treat these administrative and judicial offices as a form of property, disposing of them for revenue. The practice was characteristic of the ancien régime system of venality of office, in which public positions — including those tied to the formal keeping of legal records — were bought and sold rather than filled by appointment on merit.

Common Confusion

DROIT DE GREFFE should not be confused with the broader practice of venality of office generally, of which it is a specific subset. Nor should it be conflated with the greffe itself — the registry or clerk's office — or with the duties and functions of a greffier (court clerk). The droit de greffe is the royal right to sell such offices, not the office or its functions.

Why It Matters in Research

This term surfaces almost exclusively in historical materials concerning French public law, constitutional history, and the structure of the ancien régime judiciary. Researchers encountering it in translated legal texts, comparative law treatises, or historical analyses of French legal institutions should treat it as a marker of pre-Revolutionary French administrative practice rather than as a term with any operative modern meaning.

The term is unlikely to appear in common law sources except by way of comparative reference. When it does appear in English-language legal literature, it is almost always in works addressing the history of judicial offices, the sale of public positions, or the constitutional grievances that contributed to the French Revolution. The abolition of venality of office in 1789 rendered the droit de greffe legally obsolete, so any source invoking the term in a present-tense operative sense is either anachronistic or using it as a historical illustration.

Researchers working in Law Mind sources should note that both dictionary entries trace back to the same secondary source — Stephens's Lectures — indicating that English-language legal dictionaries drew on a single line of authority for this term. The Burrill entry, as it appears in the source material, contains fragmentary text suggesting either a printing error or a passage conflating multiple entries; the reliable substance is the same as Black's. Do not treat the Burrill entry's additional language about alien succession or feudal duties as part of the definition of droit de greffe — that material appears to bleed from a separate entry.

Historical Dictionary Support

Both Black's and Burrill's provide essentially identical definitions, both citing Stephens's Lectures (Steph. Lect. 354) as the sole authority. This convergence signals that neither dictionary conducted independent analysis of primary French sources; the English-language treatment of this term rests on a single secondary source chain. Neither dictionary places the term within the broader context of venality of office or explains the administrative mechanics by which the right operated — they record the definition without analysis. Researchers needing fuller treatment should look beyond these dictionaries to histories of French public law and the pre-Revolutionary judicial system. The Burrill entry as preserved in the Law Mind corpus appears corrupt at the tail end, with text that plainly belongs to a different entry; researchers should not attempt to reconcile that extraneous material with the droit de greffe definition.

Jurisdictional Note

This term has no operative legal meaning in any common law jurisdiction. Its relevance is confined to the historical law of France under the ancien régime. It may appear in Louisiana legal history materials given that state's French civil law heritage, but it did not survive into the operative law of any American jurisdiction.

DROIT DE GREFFEmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Fr. In old French law. The right of selling various offices connected with the custody of judicial records or notarial acts. Steph. Lect. 354. A privilege of the French kings. some countries in Europe, entitling them, on the death of an alien or stranger, to all feudal law. The duty incumbent on a rohe was worth, unless he had a particular turier, holding lands within the royal doexemption. 1 Rob. Charles V. Appendix, main, of supplying board and lodging to Note xxix. 1 Bl. Com. 372. This was the king and to his suite, while on a royal particularly the case in France, where, from progress. Steph. Lect. 351. the time of Charlemagne down to within a recent period, a stranger could not, except by special favor, dispose of his property by will, and when he died, the sovereign or lord of the barony succeeded by right of inheritance to his estate. Id. ibid. Spelman, voc. Albanus. Ducange, voc. Albani. Repertoirè de Jurisp. par Merlin, tit. Aubaine. 2 Kent's Com. 67-69. It was abolished in 1791, but revived under Napoleon, and was finally abolished only in 1819. Id. ibid. It appears, however, to have survived in other places to the present day, being formally relinquished as a subsisting right, in treaties recently made between the United States and several of the European powers. Convention with Hesse Cassel, March 25, 1844, Art. 1. Convention with Wurttemburg, April 10, 1844. The etymology of aubaine has been variously given. Nicot says it was anciently spelt hobaine, from the verb hober, which signifies to remove from one place to another. Thresor de la Lang. Franc. fol. Paris, 1606. Cujacius derives the word from the Lat. advena, a foreigner or stranger. Cujac. Opera, fol. Neap. 1758, tom. ix. col. 1719. Spelman derives it from the Lat. aliba natus, (a person born elsewhere,) which seems the best explanation. Spelman, voc. Albanus. P. Cyclop. voc. Aubaine.