FOREGOERS

5 definitions found across Law Mind sources

FOREGOERSAuthored
The Law Mind • 723 words
Definition
Foregoers were royal purveyors — officers of the English Crown authorized to go before (that is, to precede) the royal household and requisition provisions, fodder, and other supplies on the king's behalf, typically at below-market prices or on forced credit. The term appears in English statute as a designation for a specific class of royal agent whose powers were formally limited by legislation. The primary statutory reference is 26 Edw. III, c. 5, which addressed abuses committed by these officers. ---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "foregoer" — one who goes before; a predecessor or precursor. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Foregoer" is defined as one who goes before; a predecessor. Also, in an older sense, one who refrains from or gives up something (related to "forego" meaning to abstain). The gap between the common and legal meanings is significant. In ordinary English, a foregoer is simply a predecessor or one who precedes. In its historical legal sense, foregoers were not merely people who went ahead but a defined class of royal official with coercive procurement powers, regulated and curtailed by statute. A researcher encountering the word in a medieval or early modern legal text should not read it in its general English sense. ---
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow historical term of English law with no continuing modern legal significance. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in: 1. Medieval and early modern English statutes, particularly those of Edward III's reign addressing purveying abuses. 2. Treatises on royal prerogative or the history of purveyance. 3. Older legal dictionaries that preserve the term as a statutory artifact. The chief research trap is conflation with the ordinary English word "foregoer" (predecessor), which appears in non-legal texts of the same era. Context is determinative. A legal document referencing foregoers in relation to the Crown, provisioning, or household officers is using the technical term. A genealogical or narrative text using the word likely intends the common meaning. Foregoers connect directly to the broader law of purveyance — the royal prerogative to compel the sale of goods for the king's use. That prerogative was a persistent source of political conflict in England from the medieval period through the seventeenth century and was formally abolished by statute after the Restoration (12 Car. II, c. 24). Researchers working on the history of purveyance, prerogative taxation, or parliamentary resistance to Crown fiscal powers will encounter foregoers as one named category within that larger system alongside purveyors generally. Rapalje & Lawrence is useful here because its entry, though compressed and partially corrupted in surviving transcriptions, gestures toward related terms: fore-hand rents and fore-gifts. These are distinct concepts but appear in proximity in the sources, suggesting researchers may encounter them together in historical compilations. Do not treat them as synonymous with foregoers. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries converge on a single, brief definition: royal purveyors, with the statutory citation 26 Edw. III, c. 5. There is no substantive disagreement among them. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier offer identical entries. Rapalje & Lawrence preserves the same core but appends discussion of fore-hand rents in apparent proximity — likely a typographic or compilation artifact of the original printing rather than a claim that the concepts are related. None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the specific powers of foregoers, the abuses the 1352 statute addressed, or the relationship of foregoers to the broader purveyance apparatus. Researchers needing that context must go beyond the dictionary shelf to primary sources and treatises on royal household administration. The thinness of the historical entries is itself informative: by the time these dictionaries were compiled, foregoers had long been a dead letter, preserved in the legal lexicon only as a statutory curiosity. ---
Jurisdictional Note
Foregoers are a term of English law only, rooted in medieval Crown administration. The concept has no direct counterpart in American law. Colonial-era American legal complaints about impressment and forced quartering echoed the grievances underlying the English purveyance system, but foregoers as a legal category did not migrate to the American legal tradition. ---
Related Terms
Purveyance Purveyors Royal prerogative Impressment Fore-hand rents (distinct; see Rapalje & Lawrence) Pre-emption (Crown) Household officers
FOREGOERSmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
Royal purveyors. 26 Edw. III. c. 5.
FOREGOERSmain
Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888
- Royal purveyors. 26 Exeter and Lancaster, (Brand. For. Att. 1; see Edw. III. c. 5. FORE-HAND RENTS, or FINES. - A species of rent, the payment of which is generally stipulated for by a covenant in the lease. It is sometimes called a "fore-gift," or "income," but more commonly a "fine." It is a premium given by a lessee at the time of taking his lease, and has been considered as an improved rent. Woodf. Land. & T. (10 edit.) 336-339. Bract. 36 a. FOREIGN.-LATIN: foras, out of; LowLATIN: foraneus; NORMAN-FRENCH: foreyn (Littre . Forain; 1 Diez. 192.) "Foreign," translated forinsecus by our early law writers, e. g. servitia forinseca, &c., In law, (1) that which is strange, extrinsic, or irrelevant; (2) that which is out of a certain State, country, county, liberty, manor, jurisdiction, &c. "Foreign matter triable in another county." (Pl. Cor. 154; Kitch. Courts 126.) "Foreign plea is a refusal of the judge as incompetent, because the matter in hand is not within his precincts," i. e. jurisdiction. (Kitch. 75; Termes de la Ley, s. v.; Britt. 22b.) Thus, in the law of divorce, "foreign" means anywhere out of the country or State, and "foreigner" means one who is not domiciled in the country. (Yelverton v. Yelverton, 1 Swab. & T. 586.) As to foreign law, see FACT, §2. As to foreign judgments, see JUDGMENT. As to foreign services, see SERVICE. As to foreign bills of exchange, see BILL OF EXCHANGE, 29. See, also, DENIZEN; FOREIGN ATTACHMENT; FORFEITURE; STATE. FOREIGN ANSWER.-In old English practice, an answer which was not triable in the county where it was made. (Stat. 15 Hen. VI. c. 5.)-Blount. FOREIGN APPOSER. -See APPOSER, FOREIGN ASSIGNMENT. - An assignment made in a foreign country, or in another State. 2 Kent Com. 405 et seq. FOREIGN ATTACHMENT. - 1. Etymology and history. -The citizens of London had a prompt remedy by arrest against all persons within the city, whether they were citizens or foreigners, ("foreigners from Termes de la Ley, s. v. Foreign,) if an action of debt is brought in the Mayor's Court, and the defendant makes default in appearing to the action, and it appears that he has nothing within the city whereby he may be summoned, the court may, on the plaintiff alleging that some person within the city has property belonging to the defendant in his possession, attach the property to compel the defendant to appear. The attachment is effected by warning the person in whose possession the property is, not to part with it without the further order of the court. This person is then called the garnishee. If the defendant still makes default in appearing, the garnishee is required to show cause why the plaintiff should not have execution of the property attached, and, in default of cause being shown, the plaintiff obtains execution, first giving security to restore the property to the defendant if he should, within a year and a day, come into court and disprove the debt alleged in the action. (See PLEDGES TO RESTORE; SCIRE FACIAS.) What the plaintiff receives by the execution operates as a satisfaction (wholly or pro tanto) of the debt due to him from the defendant. 3. Where the property attached is money belonging to the defendant, the judgment is final, but in the case of goods the judgment is interlocutory, and is called judgment of appraisement because it directs the goods to be appraised (i. e. valued) by the serjeant at mace, in order that the defendant may be credited with their value, and when this is done final judgment is signed and execution issued. Brand. For. Att. 91. 4. Theoretically, the primary object of the process of foreign attachment is to compel the defendant to appear, and, therefore, if the defendant appears according to the custom, as by giving bail, paying money into court, &c., (see APPEARANCE,) the attachment is dissolved or at an end. In practice, however, the proceeding by foreign attachment is used principally for the purpose of taking the defendant's property in satisfaction of the debt. Hence, it has become usual to make the record in a proceeding by foreign attachment recite a number of steps which are purely fictitious, e. g. a return by the sheriff that the defendant has nothing within the city whereby he may be summoned, a "solemn calling" of the defendant, his default, &c., &c. "All this is recited in the record as occurring at one and the same court. No specific time is necessary to elapse, but immediately the action is entered and the plaintiff makes a satisfactory affidavit of his debt, he is at liberty to issue the attachment" (Id. 9), which is a command of the court to the sheriff to attach the property. The sheriff accordingly serves on the garnishee an "attachment paper," or notice not to part with the property. After the fictitious
FOREGOERSmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
Royal purveyors. 26 Edw. III. с. 5.
foregoersnoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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plural of foregoer

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