Definition
A fine cloth. The term appears in early English legal sources as a material designation, referenced by Cowell in his legal glossary. Beyond this single material definition, the term has no developed legal doctrine attached to it — it functions as a commodity descriptor rather than a term of art with operative legal significance.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering IMPERIALE in historical legal texts should understand that it is a material or goods descriptor, not a term with independent legal force. Its appearance in legal sources is almost always incidental — arising in the context of trade regulation, customs duties, sumptuary laws, import records, or probate inventories where fine cloth was listed among taxable or distributable goods. The primary citation trail runs through Cowell's *Interpreter*, which Rapalje & Lawrence follow without elaboration.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is notably compressed and runs IMPERIALE together with the adjacent entries IMPERATOR and two Latin maxims (*Imperii majestas est tutelæ salus* and *Imperitia culpæ annumeratur*), a common formatting artifact of digest-style legal dictionaries of the period. Researchers using the physical volume or a scanned reproduction should take care not to conflate these entries or attribute the adjacent maxims to IMPERIALE itself.
If you encounter the term in a medieval or early modern English legal instrument, the relevant research path is through records of the cloth trade, guild regulations, and customs schedules rather than through doctrinal legal sources. The term is unlikely to appear in modern legal instruments.
Historical Dictionary Support
Only one source in the Law Mind corpus addresses this term. Rapalje & Lawrence define it tersely as "a fine cloth," citing Cowell. John Cowell's *Interpreter* (various editions, 1607 onward) is the originating legal dictionary source for the English legal vocabulary of cloth and textile goods, and his definitions in this area were carried forward by subsequent lexicographers with little independent analysis. No other historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus expand on the term. The definition has remained stable precisely because it is narrow and material in nature — there was nothing to contest or evolve.