Definition
In historical legal usage, *geskerech* is a Law French term denoting the month of August. The term appears in older English legal records and documents where dates were expressed in Law French rather than Latin or modern English. Its significance is purely calendrical: it identifies a point in time within a legal instrument, court record, or conveyance.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with medieval and early modern English legal manuscripts, plea rolls, or conveyancing documents may encounter date references rendered in Law French. Misreading or failing to recognize *geskerech* as "August" can produce dating errors that cascade into misidentification of terms, sessions, or deadlines in historical instruments. Law French calendrical vocabulary was not standardized across all copyists, and variant spellings are common in manuscript sources. A researcher who finds a transaction or court entry dated by reference to a saint's feast day or regnal year in combination with a month term like *geskerech* should cross-reference both the calendrical meaning and the regnal year to arrive at a precise modern date. No modern legal significance attaches to this term; its relevance is entirely archival and paleographic.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary records *geskerech* with the single definition "the month of August," citing Kelham's *Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language* as the underlying authority. Kelham is the standard reference for Law French vocabulary in English legal records, and Burrill's reliance on it is appropriate. No additional historical dictionaries in the present corpus address this term. The entry is narrow and undisputed: there is no recorded divergence of meaning, no jurisdictional variation in usage, and no recorded evolution beyond its fixed calendrical sense. The brevity of the entry in Burrill reflects the term's limited function — it is a time-marker, not a term of art carrying legal consequences in its own right. Researchers should note that Burrill does not provide example usage in context, so primary manuscript sources and Kelham remain the authoritative resources for encountering this term in practice.