Definition
In historical legal usage, one who is accused; a person charged with an offense. The term derives from the Law French *cuse*, meaning accused, and appears in early English legal writing to denote the accused party in a criminal proceeding.
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Why It Matters in Research
ENCUSER is a rare Law French survival found almost exclusively in very early English legal texts. Researchers encountering the term will find it essentially confined to Britton and similarly aged sources. It does not migrate into the common law vocabulary in any sustained way, and it carries no technical meaning distinct from "the accused" — its value is purely as a period marker.
If you encounter ENCUSER in a manuscript or early printed source, treat it as a signal that you are working in pre-Tudor English legal material heavily influenced by the Anglo-Norman legal vocabulary. Cross-referencing Britton's text directly is advisable, as secondary summaries of the period sometimes regularize such terms out of existence or translate them without flagging the original.
Do not expect to find ENCUSER in later abridgments, digests, or equity materials. Its absence from Coke, Blackstone, and virtually all post-medieval authority is total. It is not a term in active legal use in any modern jurisdiction.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source placing this term on record in the American legal dictionary tradition. Burrill's entry is spare — identifying the Law French root *cuse* (accused) and pointing to Britton, chapter 4 — but it is sufficient to establish the term's provenance and meaning. No substantive divergence among historical sources can be assessed here because the term appears not to have attracted independent treatment in other major legal dictionaries of the period. Its absence from Jacob's Law Dictionary, Bouvier, and similar works underscores how narrow its circulation was even among legal lexicographers.
The reference to Britton (c. 4) locates the term firmly in the late thirteenth century. Britton, attributed to John le Breton and written under the authority of Edward I, is one of the foundational texts of early English common law and is composed throughout in Law French. The legal vocabulary of Britton reflects a transitional moment when Anglo-Norman French remained the language of the English courts and many procedural terms had not yet been anglicized.
Historical dictionaries that do carry the term essentially reproduce Burrill's terse entry without elaboration. Researchers should be cautious about treating that consensus as deep authority — it may simply reflect a chain of copying from a single source rather than independent verification.
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