Definition
One who exiles another; in historical English law, specifically a lord or manorial authority who drives off or expels villeins from a manor. The term describes the actor in the act of exile or expulsion, as distinguished from the person exiled.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): One who exiles.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered.
The common meaning and the legal meaning are not opposed, but the legal usage is considerably narrower. In general English, an exiler could be any person or authority who banishes another. In the manorial law context recorded by Burrill, the term carries the specific technical sense of a lord exercising (or wrongfully exercising) manorial power to expel villeins from the land — a transaction with distinct legal consequences in the feudal tenure system, not a generic act of banishment.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is effectively a relic of medieval English manorial law and will appear almost exclusively in that context. Researchers encountering it in historical sources should treat it as a marker of feudal tenure disputes rather than general exile or banishment proceedings. The term signals a manorial relationship — lord and villein — and its presence in a document likely indicates a question about the legal rights of lords over unfree tenants, the limits of those rights, and the remedies available to expelled villeins.
The single Burrill citation to Dyer 37 (the French edition of Sir James Dyer's reports) anchors the term firmly in early modern English common law reporting of medieval manorial disputes. Researchers working in this period should note that Dyer's reports cover the reigns of Henry VIII through Elizabeth I and that references to villeinage in that era reflect a tenure system already in significant decline. The term is unlikely to appear in American legal sources at any period, as villeinage as a legal institution was not received into American common law.
The practical research trap is conflating this term with the broader law of exile, banishment, or transportation — all of which have their own distinct legal histories and documentary trails. Exiler in the Burrill sense is not connected to those bodies of law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the only historical law dictionary source for this term in the Law Mind corpus, and his entry is minimal: the Law French origin, the action described (driving off villeins from a manor), and the single citation to Dyer. No definition of the legal consequences of such expulsion is given, and no distinction is drawn between lawful expulsion and wrongful expulsion — a distinction that would have mattered in any actual litigation over manorial rights.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any treatment of the term from the villein's perspective or any discussion of available remedies. The entry is entirely lord-centered, reflecting the orientation of much early manorial law commentary.
Jurisdictional Note
Strictly an English manorial law term. No American jurisdiction received villeinage as a legal institution, and the term has no operative legal meaning in any modern jurisdiction.