Definition
To commit to writing in brief or summary form; specifically, to enroll or enter a name, record, or matter into a schedule or written list. The term appears in medieval Latin legal texts and denotes the act of reducing something to a written note or memorandum — placing it in the kind of short document called a breve (a writ or brief writing). In practice, imbreviare described the formal act of inscribing names or facts into an official schedule, as distinct from more elaborate forms of enrollment or record-keeping.
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Common Confusion
Imbreviare is related to but distinct from the broader act of enrollment (inrolment) or engrossment. Enrollment typically implied entry into a formal court roll or official register of permanent standing. Imbreviare carried the narrower, more immediate sense of writing something into a schedule or preliminary list — closer to noting or scheduling than to final, authoritative registration. Researchers should not treat every use of imbreviare as equivalent to a fully enrolled court record.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in medieval Latin legal instruments and commentary, making it a specialist term for researchers working in early English legal history. Its most significant corpus appearance is in connection with Magna Carta, Chapter 18, where the text directs that the names of twelve knights selected to hold the possessory assizes be immediately written into a schedule — nomina eorum xii statim imbreviari faciant in quadam schedula. Researchers encountering imbreviare in original Latin texts or in Spelman's glossary should understand it as a procedural act with a specific documentary meaning: the creation of a brief written list or schedule as part of a formal legal proceeding.
The term is functionally obsolete in modern legal writing and will not appear in contemporary sources. Its presence in a document reliably signals medieval or early modern origin. Researchers tracing the procedural history of English jury selection, possessory assizes, or local judicial administration in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries will encounter it in primary sources and in glossaries derived from Spelman. Because Burrill draws directly on Spelman for this entry, researchers should consult Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum for fuller context, particularly regarding variant spellings and related Latin procedural vocabulary.
Note the spelling variation: Burrill's entry heading uses Inbreviare while the illustrative text from Magna Carta uses imbreviare. Both forms appear in the historical record and refer to the same act. Researchers working from manuscript sources or transcriptions should be alert to both spellings.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the primary historical legal dictionary treatment of this term, drawing explicitly on Spelman and on the text of Magna Carta, Chapter 18. Burrill defines it as "to commit to writing briefly" and glosses the Latin phrase scripto breviter mandare alongside the alternative formulation in schedulam quod breve vocant, rem conscribere — meaning to write a matter into that which is called a breve or schedule. The illustrative quotation from Magna Carta is genuine and instructive: it places imbreviare in a specific procedural context, the immediate recording of juror names in a schedule during the assize process.
No significant divergence exists among historical legal dictionaries on this term because few address it at all. Its coverage is narrow and specialist. Burrill's treatment, while brief, is accurate and adequately sourced for a term of this antiquity and limited usage.
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Jurisdictional Note
Imbreviare is a term of English medieval law and appears in documents within the English legal tradition. It has no equivalent usage in civil law or later common law jurisdictions. Research relevance is confined to English legal history prior to approximately the fifteenth century.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Medieval English Legal Procedure
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Magna Carta
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Breve; Writs and Their Forms
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