Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning to mow or cut. Most commonly encountered in the phrase falcare prata — to mow or cut grass in meadows laid in for hay. Falcare denoted a customary labor service owed by inferior tenants to their lord, specifically the obligation to perform mowing work on the lord's meadowlands as part of their tenure obligations.
Associated terms appearing in the same sources:
Falcata: Grass freshly mown and laid in swaths.
Falcatio: The act of mowing; a mowing.
Falcator: A mower; a servile tenant whose tenure obligated him to perform mowing labor for the lord.
Falcatura: A day's mowing — a unit of labor service measured by the work one person could accomplish in a single day.
Jus falcandi: The right of cutting, used in some sources in reference to wood as well as grass.
Core Elements
Falcare and its associated cluster of terms reflect the structure of customary agricultural tenure in medieval England. Three elements define the concept:
1. The service obligation. Tenants of inferior or servile tenure owed labor on the lord's land as a condition of holding. Mowing was among the most common such services, performed at harvest time when meadows were cut for hay.
2. The measurement of labor. Falcatura — a day's mowing — shows that these services were quantified and enforceable. Lords could demand specific units of work, and the terms of tenure defined what was owed.
3. The right of cutting. Jus falcandi extended the concept beyond mere labor service into a property right — the right to cut, whether grass or wood, on particular lands. This distinguishes a tenant's duty to mow from a right to mow, the latter carrying a proprietary character closer to an easement or profit.
Why It Matters in Research
Falcare is a term of historical law only. It will not appear in modern statutes, regulations, or case reporters. Researchers encounter it exclusively in three contexts: medieval English records and treatises (particularly Bracton and Fleta), historical glossaries and dictionaries, and secondary scholarship on feudal land tenure and customary services.
The primary research trap is treating the associated terms — falcata, falcatio, falcator, falcatura, jus falcandi — as synonymous when they carry distinct meanings. A document referencing a falcatura is recording a unit of labor owed; one referencing jus falcandi may be recording a property right. The distinction matters for correctly interpreting the tenure relationship described.
Researchers working on the history of servitudes, easements, and profits à prendre may find jus falcandi historically relevant: it represents an early form of a right held over another's land for the purpose of taking something from it (cut grass or wood), a concept that fed into later common law doctrine of profits. The connection between customary labor services and property rights in the products of land is worth tracing through Bracton and subsequent authorities.
The cluster of falcare terms also appears in glossaries appended to editions of Domesday Book scholarship and in studies of manorial court records. Researchers in legal history should expect to find variant spellings and contractions in manuscript sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries agree closely on the core definition. All identify falcare as meaning to mow or cut, situating it in old English law as a customary tenant service. Burrill's is the most thorough, tracing the Latin root to falx (scythe) and citing Kennett's Glossary alongside Bracton and the Registrum Originalium. Burrill also preserves the phrase herbam falcare — to cut grass — from the Reg. Orig., which neither Black's edition includes.
Black's first and second editions are nearly identical on this entry, with minor typographical differences (Bract. fol. 356 versus fol. 350) suggesting transcription variation rather than substantive disagreement. Rapalje & Lawrence provides the leanest entry of the four, defining the term adequately but without the associated sub-terms that give the cluster its research utility.
No source dictionary engages with the distinction between falcare as a labor obligation and jus falcandi as a property right — a gap that secondary historical scholarship fills more fully than any of the primary dictionary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Falcare has no operative legal meaning in any modern jurisdiction. It is relevant only to English legal history and to comparative historical research. Scots law and Welsh customary law developed their own vocabulary for analogous agricultural tenure obligations; falcare as a term is specifically English and Latin.