Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning to imparl — that is, to seek or obtain leave from the court to confer with the opposing party in an attempt to settle a dispute before proceeding further with the litigation. The phrase *isser d'emparler* (to go out to imparl) describes the physical act of the parties leaving the courtroom to engage in that conference. The term is the verbal root from which the English legal term "imparlance" derives.
Why It Matters in Research
EMPARLER appears almost exclusively in Year Book sources and early common law pleading records. Researchers encountering the term in medieval and early modern English legal materials should treat it as a signpost to the broader doctrine of imparlance — the procedural mechanism by which a defendant obtained a continuance to consider the plaintiff's declaration and, in theory, to negotiate a settlement. Because the term is Law French, it will surface in source materials written before the formal displacement of Law French from English court records in the eighteenth century. Researchers working with Year Book materials, particularly from the reign of Edward III onward, should be alert to variant spellings and contracted forms. The term itself rarely appears in later digests or abridgments, which typically fold the concept under IMPARLANCE without preserving the French verbal form. Burrill's citation to Yearb. P. 5 Edw. III. 18 anchors the term firmly in the fourteenth-century procedural record; researchers should not expect to find it in post-medieval sources except as a historical gloss.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only direct entry among the standard historical shelf sources. Burrill defines the term tersely — "to empar or imparl" — and supplies the associated phrase *isser d'emparler* with a Year Book citation. The entry is functional rather than expansive, treating EMPARLER as a gateway to the better-developed doctrine of imparlance rather than as an independent concept requiring elaboration. No entry appears in Bouvier, Black's early editions, or Tomlin's Law Dictionary under this spelling, reflecting the term's narrow footprint in sources aimed at practitioners rather than Year Book scholars. Jacob's Law Dictionary and Cowell's Interpreter, both of which engage more directly with Law French vocabulary, do not appear to carry a dedicated entry, though the concept appears in their treatment of imparlance. The historical dictionaries are unanimous in treating this as a fossil term — one preserved in the record but not operative in any living procedural system at the time those dictionaries were compiled.