Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning one who has been deprived of a thing or right by the judgment of a court; forjudged. The term describes a person expelled, banished, or stripped of a possession, status, or privilege through formal judicial action. It carries a dual sense: the act of being sent away from a court proceeding, and the substantive consequence of losing something by judicial decree.
Why It Matters in Research
FORISJUDICATUS is a term researchers will encounter almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal records, treatises, and Year Books. Its practical significance lies in identifying the procedural and substantive outcome of a forjudgment — a judicial act that could deprive a party of land, office, or standing. Researchers working in Bracton, Coke's commentary on Littleton, or early plea rolls should treat the term as a marker for a formal deprivation by court order, distinct from a simple judgment for the opposing party.
The term appears alongside ABJUDICATUS in Bracton, where Burrill notes the two are treated as equivalent. This overlap matters: when scanning historical sources, a researcher may find both terms used to describe the same procedural outcome, and conflating them without checking context can obscure whether the source is discussing a general forjudgment or a more specific form of judicial ouster.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry introduces a complication by defining the term negatively — as derived from "not being judged" — and cross-referencing FORJUDGE. This interpretation runs counter to the mainstream definition offered by Black's and Burrill. Researchers should treat the Rapalje & Lawrence gloss cautiously; the preponderance of historical authority, including Bracton and Coke, supports the meaning of deprivation through judgment, not absence of judgment.
This term will not appear in modern statutory or case law. It is archival vocabulary, useful for interpreting primary sources in property, tenure, and medieval procedure rather than for constructing contemporary legal arguments.
Historical Dictionary Support
The sources converge on the core meaning — deprivation by judicial sentence — while diverging on nuance and derivation. Black's (both editions) offers the most compact synthesis: forejudged, banished, deprived of a thing by court judgment, with citations to Bracton and Coke on Littleton. Burrill provides the most instructive entry, grounding the term firmly in old English law and citing the specific Bracton passage (fol. 256b) that equates FORISJUDICATUS with ABJUDICATUS. The phrase "Forisjudicatus est de eadem custodia" — he has been forjudged of the same custody — illustrates the term in action: a person judicially removed from custody or control of something.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the outlier. The cross-reference to "nullatio actus" and the gloss of "from not being judged" suggest either a scribal or editorial error or an alternative juristic tradition. No independent authority corroborates this derivation. Researchers citing Rapalje & Lawrence on this point should verify against Bracton and Coke directly.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the procedural context in which forjudgment was invoked — whether by default, contempt, or substantive adjudication. That gap must be filled by recourse to the primary sources themselves.
Jurisdictional Note
FORISJUDICATUS is a term of old English law with no recognized application in American or modern Commonwealth jurisdictions. Researchers will encounter it only in the context of medieval English common law, feudal tenure disputes, and early equity proceedings.