Definition
An obsolete Law French term meaning "to seal" — specifically, to affix a seal to a document. The term appears in medieval English legal records in several inflected forms: *ensele* (sealed), *ensele desouth les seals de jurours* (sealed under the seals of the jurors), *ensele de son seal* (sealed with his seal), and *ensellomes* (we sealed). The related term ENSEMENT (also rendered *Ansement*) is a distinct word meaning "likewise" or "in like manner," used as a connective in formal legal instruments and statutes.
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Common Confusion
ENSELER and ENSEMENT appear consecutively in Burrill and share a superficial formal resemblance, but they are unrelated in meaning. ENSELER concerns the physical and legal act of sealing a document. ENSEMENT is a conjunction meaning "also" or "likewise." A reader skimming Burrill's entry may absorb both terms under the general heading of sealing, but this would be an error. When encountering *ensement* in the Statute of Gloucester or comparable statutory texts, read it as a transitional connective, not as a variant of the sealing term.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in Year Books, plea rolls, or early English statutes will encounter ENSELER and its conjugated forms without explanation. The term is not a substantive legal concept but a term of formal instrument — it signals the act of authentication by seal, which carried the full legal weight of a signature in medieval English law. Understanding it is essential for reading Year Book passages literally rather than abstracting meaning from context alone.
The Burrill citation to *Yearb. H. 12 Hen. VI. 7* (the Year Books of Henry VI) and to Britton chapters 58 and 121 places this term squarely in the early to mid-fifteenth century corpus and the thirteenth-century legal treatise tradition. Researchers consulting Britton — the Anglo-Norman legal compilation attributed to John le Breton — should expect ENSELER and its variants to appear in procedural contexts involving jury records and formal instruments. The sealing of jury documents was a distinct procedural act; *ensele desouth les seals de jurours* confirms that jurors could authenticate documents through their seals collectively, a practice now entirely obsolete.
The form ENSEMENT/Ansement appearing in the Statute of Gloucester reference is a false friend for the modern reader: it has no connection to sealing and means simply "also" or "in like manner." Burrill flags both terms in sequence, which risks conflation. A researcher encountering *ensement* in a statutory context should read it as a connective, not as a reference to the sealing act.
Because ENSELER survives only in Law French legal records and has no post-medieval legal usage, it will not appear in equity pleadings, common law forms books, or any modern jurisdiction. Its research value is entirely archival and paleographic.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical source in the Law Mind corpus for this term, and it provides the essential minimum: the root meaning, three contextual examples drawn from Britton and the Year Books, and the inflected forms. Burrill does not elaborate on the procedural significance of sealing in medieval English law, nor does he distinguish between the sealing of jury documents and the sealing of private instruments — a distinction that matters when reading the Britton citations, where juror authentication carried public procedural significance rather than the private evidentiary weight of a party's seal.
No other standard historical law dictionaries (Jacob, Tomlin, Bouvier) carry this term, reflecting its confinement to the Law French technical vocabulary of the earliest English legal records. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as a finding aid — sufficient to identify the term on the page — rather than as a doctrinal guide to what sealing meant in practice.
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Jurisdictional Note
ENSELER has no living jurisdictional footprint. It belongs exclusively to the Law French layer of medieval English legal records and has no counterpart in Scottish, Irish, or civilian legal traditions. No American, Canadian, or modern Commonwealth jurisdiction retains this terminology.
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