FERIA - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

FERIAAuthored

The Law Mind • 1038 words

Definition

In old English and Roman law, FERIA carried several distinct meanings depending on context:

1. Weekday. A day that was neither Sunday nor a recognized feast day. Burrill distinguishes this as dies ferialis — a working day as opposed to the Lord's Day.

2. Holiday or exempt day. A day on which judicial process could not lawfully be served and legal proceedings were suspended. In Roman usage (feriae), these were days or seasons during which free-born Romans suspended political transactions and lawsuits, and during which slaves were relieved from labor. All feriae were classified as dies nefasti — days on which it was unlawful to administer justice.

3. Fair. A public market or fair, cognate with the modern term and connecting to commercial regulation in medieval English law.

4. Ferry. In old English law, a ferry or river crossing. Burrill traces this usage to the Saxon fare (passage) and eie (water), distinguishing it as a separate Latin borrowing rather than a derivative of the holiday sense.

The holiday and fair senses are the most legally consequential. The ferry sense is essentially obsolete and rarely appears outside antiquarian sources.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A weekday on a Church calendar on which no feast is observed.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A week day, especially a day which is neither a festival nor a fast.

Editorial note: The common usage tracks the ecclesiastical sense — a plain, unremarkable day. The legal sense diverges in two directions: it can mean the opposite of a plain day (a holiday, a day of suspension), and it can mean something entirely unrelated (a fair or a ferry). A researcher encountering feria in a common ecclesiastical text and the same word in a legal pleading cannot assume the same meaning.

Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

FERIAE (plural, Roman law): The broader Roman category encompassing all holiday periods. Rapalje & Lawrence distinguishes feriae as the Roman form, covering both public religious observances and private family days of rest, all classified as dies nefasti. This is the form most commonly encountered in sources on Roman civil procedure.

DIES FERIALIS: The medieval Latin construction used specifically for the weekday sense — a day that is ferialis in the sense of ordinary, not sacred.

Why It Matters in Research

The core research trap with feria is that a single word in a Latin source can mean four different things, and context does not always resolve the ambiguity cleanly. An entry in a medieval court roll using feria to explain why process was not served means the holiday/exempt-day sense. An entry in a market regulation or charter context almost certainly means fair. A water-crossing grant means ferry. Researchers working with untranslated Latin records need to exhaust contextual clues before committing to a meaning.

The Roman law sense (feriae as dies nefasti) has direct procedural consequences. Roman sources treating feriae are describing a complete suspension of legal machinery — not a mere inconvenience but a structural feature of the Roman calendar that shaped when obligations could mature, when limitations ran, and when courts sat. This connects directly to research on the Roman law of time and the computation of legal deadlines.

In English legal history, the fair sense of feria links to the law of fairs and markets, franchise grants, and the jurisdiction of pie powder courts. The holiday/process-exemption sense connects to questions about service of process, the computation of return days, and the medieval distinction between term time and vacation. These are separate bodies of doctrine that happen to share a word.

Burrill is the most granular of the shelf sources on this entry, distinguishing the etymological roots of the ferry sense and citing Bracton and Fleta directly for the fair sense. Researchers working on medieval English sources will find Burrill's citations more useful than Black's compressed entry.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four shelf sources agree on the core cluster of meanings — weekday, holiday, fair, ferry — though they differ in depth. Black's (both editions) provides the bare list with authority citations to Cowell, Du Cange, and Spelman. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the Roman law dimension explicitly, distinguishing feriae as a separate entry and connecting the holiday suspension to dies nefasti. Burrill goes furthest, citing Bracton, Fleta, and Reeves's History of English Law, and offering the etymological note separating the ferry sense as a distinct Latin borrowing.

All four sources treat feria as historical — "old English law" is the universal framing — and none engages with survival or modern relevance. This is accurate: feria as a technical legal term has no active modern application in common law jurisdictions. Its importance is entirely historical and comparative.

What the historical sources do not address: the procedural mechanics of how the exempt-day rule operated in practice, or the relationship between feria in the English sense and the Roman feriae in the development of English legal holidays. Researchers needing that connection will have to move beyond the dictionary shelf to treatise sources on legal history, particularly Maitland and Pollock or Reeves's History of English Law.

Jurisdictional Note

Feria is a term of the ius commune and medieval English law with no jurisdictional variation in modern practice — it is uniformly historical across common law systems. The Roman law sense of feriae may appear in civil law jurisdictions' legal history literature but carries no operative modern force there either.

FERIAmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In old English law. A week- day; a holiday; a day on which process could not be served; a fair; a ferry. Cowell; Du Cange; Spelman.

FERIAmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

In old English law, (1) a weekday; a holiday; a day on which process could not be served; (2) a fair; (3) a ferry. Cowell; Du Cange; Spel. Gloss. FERIÆ.-In the Roman law, holidays; generally speaking, days or seasons during which free-born Romans suspended their political transactions and their law suits, and during which slaves enjoyed a cessation from labor. All feriæ were thus dies nefasti. All feriæ were divided into two classes- "feriæ publice" and "ferise private." The latter were only observed by single families or individuals, in commemoration of some particular event which had been of importance to them or their ancestors. Smith Dict. Antiq. FERIAL DAYS.-Holidays; also, weekdays as distinguished from Sunday. Cowell. FERITA.-A wound.-Spel. Gloss. FERLING.- In old English law, the fourth part of a penny; also, the quarter of a ward in a borough. FERLINGATA.-A fourth part of a yardland. FERÆ NATURE. - Animals so described are wild animals in which there is no property, but in respect of which, or of some of them, there may be an exclusive right of preserving and of killing, which is analogous to the right of property, and which is designated game (q. v.) Also, property may be acquired in animals feræ both, let by lease. - Cowell. naturæ in various ways, and principally the following: (1) Propter industriam, i. e. by reclaiming or taming them, &c.; (2) propter impotentiam, i. e. by preventing them from escaping, e. g. by killing, wounding, clipping wings, &c., and (3) ratione privilegii, i. e, as being in and belonging to a forest, or chase, or park, or even a warren. See ANIMAL, § 2. FERE NATURE, (what animals are). 9 Pick. (Mass.) 15; 7 Johns. (N. Y.) 16; 2 Com. Dig. 271. (what are not). 1 Cow. (N. Y.) 243. (can only be qualified property in). 2 Kent Com. 394; 2 Bl. Com. 391; 1 Chit. Gen. (are not the subject of larceny). 5 N. H. 203; 4 Com. Dig. 761. Pr. 87. FERDELLA TERRÆ. -A fardel-land; ten acres; or perhaps a yard-land.-Cowell. FERDFARE.-See FERDWIT. FERLINGUS, or FERLINGUM.-A furlong (q. v.) Co. Litt. 5 b. FERM, or FEARM. -A house or land, or FERMARY.-An hospital.-Jacob. FERME.-A farm; a lease; a rent. See

FERIAmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Lat. [L. Fr. ferie.] In old English law. A week day, (dies ferialis,) as distinguished from Sunday. Spelman. A holiday; a day exempt from judieial process. Cowell. 4 Reeves Hist. Eng. Law, 17. See Feriæ. A fair. c. 63, § 4. ibid. Bract. fol. 56 b. Fleta, lib. 2, Spelman. Lib. Rames. cited L. Lat. [from Sax. fare, passage, and eie, water.] In old English law. A ferry. Spelman. See Ferry.

FERIAn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

A week day, esp. a day which is neither a festival nor a fast. Shipley.

ferianoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A weekday on a Church calendar on which no feast is observed.

ferianoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Money.

Ferianame

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

A surname.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In