Definition
In older English law, *eigne* (also spelled *eygne* or *eign*) means the elder, or firstborn. The term appears almost exclusively in the compound phrase **bastard eigne**, where it designates the elder of two children born to the same parents — the first having been born illegitimate (before the parents' marriage), the second legitimate (after). The question of which child inherited was governed by rules of primogeniture intersecting with rules of legitimacy, and *eigne* served as the modifier distinguishing the elder (illegitimate) child from the younger (legitimate) one.
The term is not used in isolation in modern law. It survives in the legal literature only as a component of the bastard eigne doctrine.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not in standard modern English dictionaries as a common word. Archaic French origin meaning "elder" or "firstborn."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as a standalone English word. The form reflects Anglo-Norman legal French, in which *aîné* (elder) was a term of ordinary social description.
The gap here is less between common and legal meaning than between two historical registers: the term was a routine descriptor in medieval French but entered English usage almost entirely through the legal context of inheritance and bastardy, where it acquired precise technical force. Modern readers encountering it in historical sources may not recognize it as a term of art at all.
---
Common Confusion
**Eigne** vs. **puisne**: These are complementary, not interchangeable. *Eigne* marks the elder child; *puisne* (later anglicized in some contexts) marks the younger. In the bastard eigne doctrine, the puisne child is the legitimate one — creating the apparent paradox that the younger, legitimate child had the stronger legal claim to inheritance in certain circumstances, yet the elder bastard's long possession could in some cases be protected. Conflating the two terms inverts the analysis entirely.
**Eigne** vs. **heir**: *Eigne* describes birth order and status; *heir* describes legal entitlement to succession. In the bastard eigne context, whether the eigne child was also the heir was precisely what was in dispute.
---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter *eigne* almost never in isolation. Its value as a dictionary entry lies in triangulating the bastard eigne doctrine. When reading medieval or early modern English case reports — particularly in Dyer, Anderson, or Plowden — *eigne* signals that the passage concerns a succession dispute where legitimacy and birth order are in tension.
The spelling is unstable in historical sources. Burrill records both *eigne* and *eygne*; other sources use *eigne*, *eyn*, or *aigné*. A corpus search limited to one spelling will miss instances under others. Researchers should build search strings that capture variants.
The doctrine the term anchors — bastard eigne and mulier puisne — was a significant exception to ordinary rules of inheritance in English common law and generated a body of case law extending from medieval period through the early modern era. It was effectively made obsolete in England by the Legitimacy Act 1926 and its successors, which changed the status of children legitimated by subsequent marriage. American jurisdictions largely did not adopt the bastard eigne doctrine, making it primarily relevant to English legal history rather than American practice.
Sources citing this term alongside case authority (Dyer 55; 1 Anderson 3, as noted in Burrill) are pointing to genuine early modern English reports. Those references are worth tracking for the full doctrinal context.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary treats *eigne* minimally — a single line directing readers to *bastard eigne*, with citations to Anderson and Dyer. This is consistent with the term's character: it is not independently defined in the major historical dictionaries because it carried no legal meaning apart from the compound phrase.
Burrill does not define the doctrine at length under this heading, suggesting the substantive treatment was reserved for the *bastard eigne* entry. This is standard practice across historical legal dictionaries of the period; Tomlin, Jacob, and Bouvier similarly subordinate *eigne* to the bastardy entry. The historical dictionaries are therefore useful here primarily as finding aids — they confirm the term's scope and redirect to the operative doctrine.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any explanation of how the doctrine functioned in practice once legitimation by subsequent marriage became more common. That gap must be filled from treatise sources and the case reports themselves.
---
Jurisdictional Note
The bastard eigne doctrine is a creature of English common law and has no meaningful parallel in American inheritance law, which generally did not adopt the mulier puisne distinction. Researchers working in English legal history will encounter *eigne* regularly; researchers working in American sources will rarely if ever see it outside historical surveys.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — BASTARD EIGNE
Law Mind Encyclopedia — PRIMOGENITURE
Law Mind Encyclopedia — LEGITIMACY
---