Definition
An archaic Law French adverbial term meaning "times" or "once," used in medieval English legal texts to indicate frequency or number of occurrences. The word appears in two principal constructions: *ascun fiez*, meaning "sometimes" or "at some times," and *une fiez*, meaning "once" or "one time." The term is not a substantive legal concept but a functional word of frequency found in early Norman-French legal instruments and treatises.
Common Confusion
FIEZ vs. FEE / FIEF: The visual and phonetic similarity between *fiez* and the substantive terms *fee* (a freehold estate) and *fief* (the feudal tenure underlying it) creates a real transcription and reading hazard. These are entirely unrelated in meaning. *Fee* and *fief* are nouns denoting property interests; *fiez* is an adverb of frequency. A passage reading *une fiez* means "once," not "one fee." Researchers working from manuscript or early printed sources should not allow orthographic proximity to drive interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with medieval English legal manuscripts, year books, or early treatises transcribed in Law French will encounter *fiez* and its compounds as temporal or quantitative modifiers. Misreading *une fiez* as a reference to fee or tenure—given the visual and phonetic proximity of *fiez* to *fee* and *fief*—is a plausible error that can distort the meaning of a passage entirely. The term has no continuing presence in modern legal vocabulary and will not appear in post-medieval sources except in historical commentary or transcription.
The primary textual anchor is *Fet Assaver* (also rendered *Fet Asaver* or *Fitz Asaver*), a medieval Law French treatise on the forms and procedure of common law pleading, cited by Burrill at sections 52, 59, and 37 respectively. Researchers consulting that source should note that the sections cited use *fiez* purely in its adverbial sense. Cross-reference with *Foits* (noted by Burrill as a related entry) is recommended, as that term carries overlapping temporal meaning in the same corpus of Law French usage.
Because Law French terms of this class were functional rather than definitional—they were the connective tissue of pleading formulas rather than terms of art—they tend to be underrepresented or entirely absent in legal dictionaries after the eighteenth century. A researcher encountering *fiez* in a manuscript context and finding no entry in later dictionaries should not assume the text is corrupt; the absence simply reflects the term's grammatical rather than juridical character.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive entry in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill correctly identifies *fiez* as Law French, glosses it as "times," and supplies the two primary compounds with section-specific citations to *Fet Assaver*. The entry is brief but accurate for its purpose: it is a glossary note rather than a doctrinal entry, appropriate to a term that carries no legal weight of its own. Burrill also cross-references *Foits*, suggesting awareness that the term belonged to a small cluster of related adverbial frequency-words in Law French pleading.
No entry for *fiez* or its compounds appears in later standard dictionaries such as Black's or Bouvier's, which reflects the disappearance of Law French from active practice rather than any inadequacy in those works. Burrill, writing with greater attention to the historical and Norman stratum of English legal language, is the appropriate source for this term.