Definition
An enquerer is a historical legal term, drawn from Law French, denoting one who inquires or makes inquiry — particularly in a formal or judicial context. The term appears in early English legal procedure as a description of an officer, judge, or body charged with conducting an examination or inquest. It derives from the Latin *inquirere* and is closely related to the broader cluster of Anglo-Norman legal vocabulary surrounding inquisitorial proceedings, inquests, and the formal examination of facts by a designated authority.
The term is primarily encountered as a verbal or nominal form in medieval legal texts, where *enquerer* (to inquire) and *enquerge* (he shall inquire) appear as procedural commands or descriptions of official duty.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): One who enquires; a person asking questions or seeking information.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who inquires; a questioner; an investigator.
The gap between common and legal usage here is one of formality and institutional weight rather than a sharp divergence in meaning. In ordinary usage, any person asking a question is an enquirer. In the historical legal context, the term carried the specific sense of a person or tribunal vested with official authority to conduct a formal inquiry — closer in function to what modern law would call an examining magistrate or grand juror than to a mere questioner.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval and early modern English legal sources will encounter this term and its variants — *enquerer*, *enquerge*, *inquireur*, *enquête* — embedded in Law French passages where Latin originals have been partially translated or paraphrased. The spelling is inconsistent across manuscripts and printed abridgements; variant forms include *enquirour*, *enquerour*, and *inquerour*. Searching any single spelling will miss others.
The term's significance lies less in its definition than in what it signals: when *enquerer* appears in a text, the surrounding passage almost certainly concerns inquisitorial procedure, inquest machinery, or the duties of a judicial officer conducting an examination of witnesses or facts. It is a procedural marker pointing toward inquiry-based mechanisms that predate and coexist with common law jury trial.
Researchers should note that Britton — the source cited in Burrill — is a late thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman legal treatise written in the first person as if by Edward I, and is a primary source for the law of that period. Chapters 51 and 1 of Britton deal, respectively, with matters of criminal procedure and the general duties of justices, making clear that *enquerer* in this context refers to judicial officers conducting formal examinations, not private parties seeking information.
The term has no meaningful survival in modern legal usage. Anyone encountering it in a corpus search is working in historical material, and the surrounding procedural context — inquest, presentment, examination — will typically confirm the official, institutional sense.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is brief but precise. It correctly identifies the Law French origin, supplies the Latin root, and distinguishes the infinitive form (*enquerer*: to inquire) from the third-person imperative or indicative form (*enquerge*: he shall inquire). Both citations are to Britton, the standard thirteenth-century authority for this vocabulary.
Burrill does not elaborate on the officer or body designated as enquerer, nor does he trace the term's relationship to the broader inquest tradition. What the entry usefully confirms is the purely procedural, non-adversarial character of the term: *enquerer* describes an official act of examination, not an accusation or a judgment. It sits at the investigative stage of medieval legal process.
No other sources in the Law Mind shelf independently treat *enquerer* as a discrete entry. The term is more fully illuminated by examining neighboring entries — *inquest*, *inquisition*, *presentment* — and by consulting Britton directly.
Jurisdictional Note
This term belongs to the legal vocabulary of medieval English law and is not in active use in any modern jurisdiction. It may appear in historical legal materials from jurisdictions with English common law roots, but only in sources predating the seventeenth century.