Definition
A haubergetta (also rendered hauberject, hauberget, or haubergette) is a type of cloth referenced in medieval English law, specifically in Magna Carta. The term denotes a fabric — likely a coarse or worsted wool textile — that was subject to royal regulation of standardized width. Under the relevant provision of Magna Carta, haubergettas, along with dyed cloths and russets, were required to be uniform in breadth: two ells measured within the selvedge lists (the finished edges of the fabric).
The term appears in the commercial and trade-regulatory dimension of Magna Carta rather than in its more celebrated civil liberties provisions. It reflects the charter's role not only as a constitutional document but as an instrument of commercial standardization, aimed at protecting buyers and merchants from variable or fraudulent cloth measurements.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter haubergetta almost exclusively in the context of medieval trade regulation and the cloth provisions of Magna Carta. Several navigational points are worth noting.
First, the spelling is highly unstable across historical sources. Forms include hauberject, haubergets, haubergette, hauberjectus, and haberject. A search limited to a single spelling will miss the bulk of relevant material. Burrill himself uses both "hauberjects" and "haubergettorum" within the same entry, reflecting the Latin original alongside anglicized variants.
Second, the cloth provisions of Magna Carta (principally Chapter 35 in the 1215 text, though chapter numbering varies by recension) are among the least-studied portions of the charter in modern legal scholarship. Corpus researchers interested in medieval commercial law, weights and measures regulation, or the history of trade standards will find haubergetta a productive entry point into that literature, but should not expect extensive annotation in general legal reference works.
Third, the ell measurement referenced — two ells within the lists — is itself a historically variable unit. An English ell was approximately 45 inches, but the precise standard shifted across time and jurisdiction. Research into the practical enforcement of this provision requires cross-referencing with sources on medieval weights and measures law.
Fourth, haubergetta has no meaningful survival in modern law. It is a dead term for a defunct regulatory category. Its research value is therefore purely historical: understanding medieval English commercial regulation, the full scope of Magna Carta, or the legal treatment of textile trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive treatment of haubergetta among the major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill quotes the Latin text of Magna Carta directly — "Una [sit] latitudo pannorum tinctorum, russatorum, et haubergettorum, sc. duæ ulnæ infra listas" — and offers a working English translation: "there shall be one breadth of dyed cloths, russets, and hauberjects, to wit, two ells within the lists." The attribution to "Magna Charta, 9 Hen." refers to the confirmation of Magna Carta in the ninth year of Henry III (1225), the version that became the settled statutory text.
Burrill's entry is brief and descriptive, identifying haubergetta as a kind of cloth without elaborating on its precise character, manufacture, or commercial context. General legal dictionaries of the period (Bouvier, Black's early editions) do not appear to carry independent entries for the term, which underscores its narrow technical significance even within historical legal lexicography.
What historical dictionaries as a class do not supply is any discussion of how or whether the cloth-width provisions of Magna Carta were actually enforced in medieval practice, or how haubergetta related to the broader medieval English cloth trade. Researchers requiring that context should look beyond legal dictionaries to economic and social histories of medieval English textile commerce.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to English law and derives from English Magna Carta. It has no independent legal life in other common law jurisdictions. References in American, Canadian, or other Commonwealth legal sources, if any, would be purely historical or antiquarian.