Definition
A fixed calendar reference used in old English law denoting the first day of August. The term corresponds to the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula — St. Peter in Chains — a holy day observed on August 1 in the ecclesiastical calendar of the medieval church. In legal instruments, writs, and statutes of the English common law era, "Gule of August" functioned as a date marker, identifying when certain legal obligations fell due, when terms commenced or expired, or when procedural steps were required.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not in general modern use. The term survives primarily in historical, heraldic, and antiquarian contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not independently defined. The component word "gule" appears in heraldic usage meaning the color red (from Arabic via the Crusaders), but this is an entirely separate word and meaning.
Editorial note: The heraldic term "gules" (red) and "gule" as used in "Gule of August" share a surface resemblance but are unrelated in origin and meaning. Researchers encountering either term in historical documents should not conflate them. Rapalje & Lawrence's entry compounds this confusion by running the two definitions together without clear separation.
Common Confusion
Two distinct terms share the root "gule" and appear in close proximity in historical legal dictionaries. GULES is the heraldic name for the color red, used in blazoning armorial bearings. GULE OF AUGUST is a calendar term with no heraldic content. Burrill correctly treats them as separate entries; Rapalje & Lawrence runs them together in a way that can mislead the casual reader. A document referencing "the gule" in a scheduling or writ context almost certainly means August 1, not a color designation.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational term — its primary function in legal research is chronological orientation within historical documents. Medieval and early modern English legal instruments frequently used ecclesiastical feast days rather than numeric dates to identify deadlines, return days, and term boundaries. A researcher encountering "Gule of August" in a writ, plea roll, or statute must read it as August 1, not as a substantive legal concept.
The statutes cited in historical sources — Statute of Westminster II (c. 30) and 27 Edw. III st. 3 — use this term in precisely this calendrical way. Researchers working with plea rolls, year books, or early statute texts will find feast-day dating conventions throughout. A working knowledge of the principal ecclesiastical markers (Hilary, Easter, Trinity, Michaelmas, Candlemas, Lammas, and this term) is essential to correctly parsing dates in those sources.
Note that Lammas Day is also August 1 and is the more commonly recognized secular name for the same date in agricultural and rental contexts. When a historical document uses "Gule of August," the ecclesiastical register is in play; "Lammas" signals the secular or agricultural register. The underlying date is identical.
The Law Mind corpus will surface this term almost exclusively in older English primary sources and in the reference dictionaries themselves. It does not appear in modern statutory or case law. Its value is purely interpretive.
Historical Dictionary Support
All five source dictionaries agree on the core definition: Gule of August = August 1 = the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula. There is no substantive disagreement among them.
Burrill provides the most scholarly treatment, supplying the Latin and Law French forms (gula Augusti; goule de August) and citing Spelman and Cowell, both standard authorities on archaic English legal terminology. Burrill also ties the term to specific statutory references, which confirms its genuine legal usage rather than mere antiquarian curiosity.
Bouvier and both Black's editions give compressed definitions adequate for identification but add no texture. Rapalje & Lawrence, as noted, is potentially confusing due to its formatting, though the definition itself is accurate.
None of the source dictionaries explain the practical mechanism — why feast days were used as legal dates — which is a gap researchers should be aware of. That context requires consultation of works on the history of the English legal calendar, such as Spelman's Glossarium or Cowell's Interpreter, both referenced by Burrill.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to old English law and has no application in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions as an operative legal term. American legal sources do not use ecclesiastical feast-day dating conventions. The term appears in American legal dictionaries solely for the purpose of interpreting English historical sources.