Definition
An archaic legal term meaning "field." In composition — that is, when combined with other words to form compound legal or place-name terms — *feld* carries the sense of "wild" or open uncultivated land. The term appears in early English legal texts and place-name formations and is not a term of active modern legal use.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter *feld* almost exclusively in one of two contexts: (1) as a component of Old English or Anglo-Norman place names embedded in historical land records, grants, and deeds, where correctly parsing the compound term may be necessary to identify the parcel or boundary at issue; or (2) as a lexical gloss in historical legal dictionaries, where it appears as a short entry directing attention to related terms.
The primary research trap is treating *feld* as a standalone legal term with operative significance in a historical document, when it is almost always a constituent element of a compound place name or descriptive phrase rather than a defined legal term with rights or duties attached to it. Historical English land law made extensive use of place-name compounds derived from Old English roots — including *feld* — and misreading these components can lead to errors in locating or describing property in historical title chains.
Because the entry in both Black's editions is essentially a one-line gloss citing Blount's *Nomo-Lexicon* (1670), researchers should not expect these dictionary sources to provide meaningful doctrinal content. The citation to Blount is the operative reference; Blount's compilation is the deeper source for anyone requiring further historical grounding in this term.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary reproduce the same minimal entry verbatim: "A field; in composition, wild. Blount." Neither edition expands beyond this gloss or provides examples of the term in legal instruments. The entry immediately precedes or adjoins the entry for *FELE, FEAL* (L. Fr., faithful), suggesting the two were encountered in proximity in the sources Black's drew upon, but they are unrelated in meaning and function.
The attribution to Blount refers to Thomas Blount's *Nomo-Lexicon: A Law-Dictionary* (1670), one of the foundational early English legal dictionaries. Blount's treatment of Old English and Anglo-Norman terms was influential on subsequent lexicographers, and his glosses frequently passed forward into later compilations with little alteration — as the identical text across both Black's editions illustrates. Researchers relying on Black's for *feld* are, in effect, relying on a seventeenth-century gloss at two removes from its original source.
No meaningful divergence exists between the two Black's editions on this term; the entry was carried forward unchanged.
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