Definition
In old English law, a term appearing in manorial and agricultural records with two related but distinct referents: (1) a sheep in its second year, before its first shearing; and (2) a young hog or swine. The dual application reflects the term's roots in estate management vocabulary, where precise livestock classification carried legal and economic significance for purposes of inventory, render, and manorial accounting.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not in standard modern dictionaries; the term is archaic and has no current vernacular use.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded as a primary entry; the concept was absorbed into terms such as "hogget" (a young sheep or swine of the second year).
The legal meaning is identical to the historical agricultural meaning — there is no meaningful gap between common and legal usage here. The term survives only in legal sources because it appears in Fleta and Cowell, two texts that heavily influenced early English legal lexicography. Researchers should not expect to encounter it outside of manorial, agricultural, or estate contexts.
Common Confusion
HOGASTER, HOGGUS (or HOGIETUS), and the related term HOGGET appear in close proximity in historical dictionaries and can blur together. Cowell treats HOGGUS and HOGIETUS as straightforwardly meaning a hog or swine, while HOGASTER carries the additional and arguably primary meaning of a second-year sheep. HOGGET, the term most familiar to agricultural historians, is the broader surviving form. When reading manorial extents or livestock renders in old English records, the specific term used may determine whether sheep or swine are being counted — a distinction with real consequences for interpreting estate valuations.
Why It Matters in Research
HOGASTER is a narrow, specialized term with an extremely limited footprint in the legal corpus. Its primary significance for Law Mind researchers is classificatory rather than doctrinal: it appears in sources concerned with manorial livestock accounting and the legal obligations attached to agricultural renders, tithes, and estate inventories.
Key navigational points:
The Fleta citation (lib. 2, c. 79, §§ 4, 12) is the anchor. Researchers encountering HOGASTER in any context should trace back to Fleta as the originating authority. Cowell's Interpreter then transmitted the term into the English legal dictionary tradition, and from there it passed into Black's without meaningful expansion.
The dual meaning (sheep vs. swine) is not a later confusion — it appears to reflect genuine ambiguity in historical usage, possibly regional. When interpreting a specific document, the surrounding livestock inventory terms will often resolve which animal is meant.
The term has no modern statutory or case law relevance. It will appear only in: (a) historical English manorial records and extents; (b) legal dictionaries as a lexicographical entry; or (c) secondary scholarship on agrarian law and feudal tenure.
Researchers working on tithe disputes, manorial court records, or the interpretation of old English estate documents should cross-reference livestock terminology carefully. A "hogaster" render in a manorial extent is not interchangeable with a render of "hoggus" or a general reference to swine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) treats HOGASTER identically, defining it as both "a sheep of the second year" and "a young hog," citing Fleta and Cowell respectively. The dual definition is presented without editorial comment on the tension between the two meanings, which Black's sources do not resolve.
Rapalje & Lawrence compress the entry further — "a little hog; a young sheep" — attributing both meanings to Cowell and treating the ambiguity as unremarkable. The juxtaposition of HOGASTER with HOLDER (of a promissory note) in Rapalje & Lawrence is purely alphabetical and illustrates how thoroughly archaic agricultural vocabulary was incorporated into early American legal dictionaries as part of comprehensive coverage of English legal sources.
Cowell's Interpreter, the common thread across all three dictionaries, was itself drawing on manorial and agricultural custom rather than court-developed doctrine. This means the term's legal pedigree is less about judicial interpretation and more about the codification of estate management practice into reference literature.
None of the historical dictionaries offer guidance on how to resolve the sheep/swine ambiguity in practice, and none expand the definition beyond Fleta and Cowell. Modern legal dictionaries have largely dropped the term entirely.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Manorial Law; Feudal Tenure and Agricultural Renders