FARLINGARII - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

FARLINGARIIAuthored

The Law Mind • 454 words

Definition

Farlingarii is a Latin plural noun from medieval English law denoting whoremongers and adulterers — that is, persons who engaged in prostitution or kept prostitutes, and persons who committed adultery. The term appears in ecclesiastical and early common law contexts where such conduct fell within the jurisdiction of church courts or was addressed by canonical penalties.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is encountered almost exclusively in medieval legal texts, ecclesiastical court records, and glossaries derived from early English legal sources. Researchers working in pre-Reformation ecclesiastical jurisdiction, canon law, or early common law history may encounter it in primary sources but should not expect it to appear in post-Reformation or modern legal materials.

The chief research trap is false context: Black's 2nd edition embeds the definition of farlingarii immediately before its entry for FARM, and the boundary between the two entries is not clearly marked in some reproductions and digitizations of that edition. A researcher scanning the Black's text could inadvertently conflate the tail end of the farlingarii entry with the opening of the FARM entry. Verify independently that any quoted passage is correctly attributed to one term or the other.

Because farlingarii describes a class of persons subject to ecclesiastical censure rather than a common law cause of action or a statutory offense, it does not map neatly onto the modern criminal categories of prostitution, pandering, or adultery. Researchers should not use the term as a direct ancestor of any modern statutory offense without intermediate sourcing.

Jurisdictional relevance is effectively limited to English ecclesiastical law and its medieval antecedents. The term does not appear to have had meaningful reception in American colonial or early republic legal vocabulary.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier and Black are in full agreement: farlingarii means whoremongers and adulterers, with no elaboration on procedure, penalty, or the specific legal body that exercised jurisdiction over such persons. Neither dictionary provides a secondary source citation for the term itself (Black's citation apparatus in the surrounding text pertains to FARM, not to farlingarii), which leaves the doctrinal context thin in both shelf sources.

This is one of the cases where the historical dictionaries function as a glossary of encountered Latin terms rather than as a guide to substantive legal doctrine. Neither Bouvier nor Black explains whether the term originated in canon law, in royal writs, in local court records, or in the writings of a particular jurist. Researchers needing more than a bare translation should look to sources on medieval English ecclesiastical jurisdiction and canon law rather than relying on the dictionary entries alone.

FARLINGARIImain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

Whoremongers and adulterers. FARM, n. A certain amount of provision reserved as the rent of a messuage. Spelman. Rent generally which is reserved on a lease; when it was to be paid in money, it was called “blanche firme.” Spelman; 2 BIL Comin. 42. 4 A term, a lease of lands; a leasehold interest. 2 Bl. Comm. 17; 1 Reeve, Eng. Law, 301, note. The land itself, let to farm or rent. 2 Bl. Comm. 368. A portion of land used for agricultural purposes, either wholly or in part. ' The original meaning of the word was “rent,” and by a natural transition it came to mean the land out of which the rent issued. In old English law. A lease of other things than land, as of imposts. There were several of these, such as “the sugar farm,” “the silk farm,” and farms of wines and currents, called “petty farms.” See 2 How. State Tr. 1197-1206. In American law. “Farm” denotes a tract of land devoted in part, at least, to cultivation, for agricultural purposes, without reference to its extent, or to the tenure by which it is held. In re Drake (D. C.)' 114 Fed. 231; People ex rel. Rogers v. Caldwell, 142 Ill. 434, 32 N. E. 691; Kendall v. Miller, 47 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 448; Com. v. Carmalt, 2 Bin. (Pa.) 238. FARM, v. To lease or let; to demise or grant for a limited term and at a stated rental. —Farm let. Operative words in a_ lease, which strictly mean to let upon payment of a sia 7.