Definition
To essoin; the act of presenting a formal excuse to a court on behalf of an absent party. In old English practice, essoniare referred specifically to the procedural act of submitting an essoin — a recognized legal excuse for non-appearance — to the court through a designated representative. The person performing this act was termed an essoniator, meaning one sent to deliver the excuse in place of the party who could not attend. The essoniator functioned not as an advocate but as a messenger of excuse, formally conveying the reason for absence so that the absent party would not suffer a default judgment or forfeiture for non-appearance.
Common Confusion
ESSONIARE, ESSOIN, and ESSONIATOR are closely related but distinct: essoniare is the verb (the act of essoining), essoin is the noun (the excuse itself or the right to present one), and essoniator is the agent noun (the person who performs the act). Researchers encountering any of these forms in medieval or early modern English legal records should cross-check all three, as historical sources use them interchangeably or shift between Latin and Anglo-French variants without consistency. See also EXCUSATOR, which Burrill flags as a related but not identical concept — excusator carries broader application in civil and canon law contexts beyond the specific procedural mechanism of the essoin system.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to the procedural vocabulary of medieval English common law and will appear almost exclusively in records predating the significant reforms of the 19th century. Researchers working in plea rolls, court records, or treatises from the 12th through 17th centuries are most likely to encounter it. Several practical research notes apply.
First, essoniare is a Latin verbal form and will appear inflected — essoniavit, essoniari, essoniatus — depending on context. Searching only the base form will miss a significant portion of attestations in primary sources.
Second, the essoin system was a highly technical body of procedural law with recognized categories of valid excuse (illness, being in the king's service, being overseas, and others). Understanding that essoniare refers to the delivery mechanism — not the substance of the excuse — helps distinguish the procedural record from the underlying factual claim.
Third, the term's obsolescence is complete in modern practice. No living jurisdiction uses essoins as a recognized procedural device. Any modern-day encounter with this term is either antiquarian, comparative-historical, or arising in the interpretation of very old instruments.
Fourth, researchers should note that the essoin system sits at the intersection of feudal obligations, court attendance duties, and early common law pleading. Sources discussing essoniare will often also touch on default procedure, amercements for non-appearance, and the writ system — providing useful adjacent material for broader research into medieval procedural law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the sole source in the Law Mind corpus covering this term, and his entry is reliable for its purpose: identifying the term as old English practice Latin, glossing it accurately as the act of essoining, and providing the agent noun essoniator with its English equivalent excuser. Burrill's citation to Bracton (fol. 337b, 340 et seq.) and Fleta (lib. 6, c. 7, § 11) points researchers toward the two most authoritative medieval English legal treatises for substantive treatment of essoin law. His citation to Reeves' History of English Law (vol. 1, pp. 116, 118) directs researchers to a more accessible secondary treatment.
Burrill's cross-reference to EXCUSATOR is worth heeding: the two concepts overlap but are not coextensive, and conflating them risks importing civil or canon law meanings into a context where the essoin's specific procedural rules governed.
What the historical dictionaries do not fully convey is the systemic importance of the essoin in medieval court procedure. The essoin was not a mere courtesy — it was a structured mechanism embedded in the operation of royal courts, with specific rules about how many essoins a party could claim, in what sequence, and with what consequences for abuse. Essoniare, as the verbal act within that system, represents a formal procedural step, not merely an informal excuse.