Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning "to run," "to run against," or "to bar." Used in the context of time running against a party — that is, a limitations period accruing or operating to cut off a legal right or remedy. The phrase most commonly associated with the term is *car nul temps en ceo cas ne luy encoure*, meaning "for no time in this case runs against him," indicating that a statute of limitations or prescriptive period does not apply to bar the party's claim.
The term is a verb form derived from the Latin *incurrere* (to run into, to incur, to fall upon), adapted into Law French legal usage to describe the operation of time as a legal force that "runs" against a litigant.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not present as a standard English entry. "Incur" (the cognate verb) means to become subject to something as a result of one's actions, typically a cost, liability, or penalty.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's does not list *encourer* as an English word. The related term "incur" is defined as "to become liable or subject to; to bring down upon oneself."
The legal term *encourer* belongs to a specialized register of Law French that was never absorbed into ordinary English. Unlike "incur," which passed into common usage, *encourer* remained confined to medieval legal pleading. A researcher encountering it should not read it through the modern lens of "incur" (to take on a liability) — its specific legal meaning is the running of time against a party, a narrower and more technical concept.
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Why It Matters in Research
*Encourer* is almost exclusively a term of medieval English legal pleading, appearing in Law French sources and their transcriptions. Researchers working with early English common law materials — particularly treatises and Year Books predating the decline of Law French in the seventeenth century — may encounter the term in arguments concerning limitations, prescription, or the tolling of time-based defenses.
The primary research trap is mistranslation or misreading. *Encourer* can be confused visually or phonetically with unrelated English or French words. Its meaning is directional and specific: time *running against* a party, not simply the passage of time in the abstract.
The phrase preserved in Britton (c. 38) — *car nul temps en ceo cas ne luy encoure* — is the canonical usage. This phrasing signals an exception to the ordinary running of time, typically invoked to protect a party from being barred by limitations in circumstances where equity or legal privilege suspends the period. Researchers should treat this as a precursor concept to what modern law calls tolling of the statute of limitations.
Because the term does not survive into modern legal usage, it will not appear in post-seventeenth-century materials except as quotation or historical commentary. Its presence in a source is itself a dating marker: the text is almost certainly medieval or an early modern reproduction of medieval pleading forms.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical dictionary source for this term, and its entry is appropriately spare. Burrill correctly identifies the Law French origin, the Latin root *incurrere*, and the operative meaning — "to run; to run against, or bar" — before supplying the Britton citation as illustrative authority.
What Burrill's entry does not address is the doctrinal context in which this formula was invoked. The phrase from Britton chapter 38 concerns situations where time is suspended against a claimant — a principle that in later common law developed into a body of tolling doctrine protecting parties under disability, in wardship, or otherwise unable to sue. The term *encourer* is thus not merely grammatical filler in a Law French sentence; it carries the conceptual weight of what we now call the "running" of limitations.
No other standard historical legal dictionary — not Black's, not Bouvier's, not Tomlin's — appears to carry an independent entry for *encourer*, making Burrill a rare primary reference point for this term. Researchers should treat Britton itself as the authoritative primary source and Burrill as the secondary bridge.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term belongs exclusively to the historical common law of England and has no independent life in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions. It is a research term, not a term of operative modern law in any jurisdiction.
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