Definition
An archaic Law French adverbial term meaning "feloniously" — that is, with the criminal intent or disposition characteristic of a felon. Used in early English legal pleading and record-keeping to denote that an act was done with the malicious or criminal purpose that elevated a wrongful act to the level of felony.
The term is essentially a Law French equivalent of the Latin *felonice* and the English "feloniously," all of which served the same pleading function: formally asserting the mental character of the accused's act in indictments and criminal appeals.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *felonisement* will find it almost exclusively in medieval English legal sources — plea rolls, indictments, and treatises written in or drawing on the Law French tradition. Its appearance in a document is a strong signal that the source dates from, or is directly imitating, pre-Tudor English criminal pleading practice.
The term is functionally interchangeable with *felonice* (Latin) and "feloniously" (English) for research purposes, but its precise form signals the linguistic register of the document. A scribe or pleader using *felonisement* rather than *felonice* was working in the Law French tradition, which can help date and situate manuscript sources.
Researchers should be aware that the word itself carries no independent doctrinal content beyond the assertion of felonious intent. It is a term of pleading art, not a substantive legal standard with its own body of case law. Its significance is formal and linguistic: its presence in an indictment or appeal was legally required to properly characterize the offense as a felony. Omission of the equivalent term in a formal charge could, in classical pleading, be fatal to the indictment.
Because the term appears in Britton (*Britt. c. 22*), a late 13th-century treatise on English law written in Law French, researchers using that source or related Anglo-Norman legal literature should recognize *felonisement* as standard pleading vocabulary of that era, not a specialized or unusual locution.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole entry among the Law Mind shelf sources, defining *felonisement* concisely as "L. Fr. Feloniously" with a single citation to Britton, chapter 22. This is consistent with the term's status as a narrow pleading word of art with no broader doctrinal life requiring extended treatment.
Burrill's handling is representative of how 19th-century legal lexicographers approached Law French survivals: brief glossing with a citation to the authoritative source, on the implicit understanding that the researcher's interest is identification rather than doctrine. No independent definition of the mental state itself is offered because the term adds nothing to what "feloniously" conveys — it simply conveys it in Law French.
Historical dictionaries more broadly tend to group such adverbial pleading terms under entries for their English or Latin cognates (*felonice*, "feloniously," "felony") rather than treating them separately. Researchers who do not find *felonisement* in a given reference should look under those cognate headings.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is specific to the English common law tradition and its Law French pleading heritage. It has no counterpart in civil law systems and does not appear in American legal sources as a term of art. American indictment practice adopted "feloniously" in English from early in the colonial period.