Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning "doing" or "in the act of doing." Faisant appears in older English legal records primarily as a component of compound phrases rather than as a standalone term. It derives from the French verb *faire* (to do or to make) and functions as the present participle, equivalent to the English "doing" or "making."
In legal usage, the term surfaces most visibly in the phrase *damage faisant* (also rendered *damage feasant* or *damagefeasant*), which described an animal or person caught in the act of causing damage or trespass — particularly livestock found on another's land and causing harm. The phrase was the basis for the common law remedy of *distress damage feasant*, by which the property owner could impound the offending animal until compensation was made.
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Common Language
There is no meaningful modern common usage of *faisant* in English. The word survives in French as the present participle of *faire*, meaning simply "doing" or "making," but it carries no specialized legal weight in contemporary French legal usage. Because the term is pure Anglo-Norman legal vocabulary with no surviving English common-language form, the gap requiring explanation runs not between legal and common meaning but between the term's appearance in historical legal sources and its near-total invisibility in modern practice. Researchers encountering *faisant* in old plea rolls or treatises should understand it as a grammatical modifier embedded in compound phrases rather than as an independent legal concept.
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Common Confusion
Faisant is frequently rendered in later sources as *feasant* or *feasant*, the anglicized spelling. Burrill's own entry redirects readers to *Feasant*, signaling that by the nineteenth century the French spelling was already receding in favor of the phonetic English form. Researchers searching historical records should query both spellings. Additionally, *faisant* should not be confused with *fait* — the related but distinct Law French noun (from the same root *faire*) meaning a deed or conveyance, which Burrill treats separately and which carries an entirely different legal function.
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Why It Matters in Research
The principal research value of *faisant* is navigational: encountering the term in a primary source almost always signals the presence of the compound phrase *damage faisant/damage feasant*, and understanding that compound is what matters substantively. Researchers working in medieval or early modern English legal records — especially Year Books, manor court rolls, or early common law pleadings — will find *faisant* appearing as part of distress and trespass records.
The spelling variation between *faisant* (Law French) and *feasant* or *feasant* (anglicized) creates a genuine indexing trap in historical databases. Full-text searches that query only one spelling will miss occurrences of the other. Researchers using digitized legal manuscripts or early printed reports should run parallel searches.
Burrill's redirect from *faisant* to *feasant* is itself a research signal: it reflects the nineteenth-century common law treatise tradition's move away from Law French orthography toward English phonetic spelling. Sources before approximately 1700 are more likely to use the French form; sources after are more likely to use the anglicized form.
No jurisdictional variation is relevant in the modern sense — the term is obsolete in active legal usage across all common law systems — but researchers working in American colonial records, early state court records, or English legal history will encounter it in the Law French form and must be prepared to trace it through its anglicized descendants.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry for *faisant* is minimal — essentially a cross-reference — but it performs a useful service by linking the term explicitly to *faire* and directing the reader to *Feasant*, where the substantive treatment of *damage feasant* and distress occurs. Burrill also uses the entry as an occasion to introduce *fait*, the related noun meaning a deed or conveyance, supported by references to Coke on Littleton and Keilwey's Reports.
The proximity of *faisant* and *fait* in Burrill reflects a genuine conceptual and etymological kinship that historical dictionaries generally handle by clustering these terms together. Researchers should read the *faisant* entry and the *fait* entry in tandem when working through Burrill, as the two terms illuminate the broader semantic field of *faire*-derived legal vocabulary — doing, making, acting, executing — that pervades early common law pleading.
Historical dictionaries before Burrill, including Cowell's *Interpreter* and Jacob's *Law Dictionary*, address *damage feasant* directly under the anglicized spelling rather than under the French root, which further confirms the gradual displacement of Law French orthography from mainstream legal reference works by the eighteenth century.
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