Definition
A Latin term from old European law meaning to hang or suspend from a hook. The word derives from the Latin prefix *in* (upon) and the French *croc* (a hook), yielding the literal sense of suspending a body from a hooked branch or gibbet. In the legal contexts where it appears, *incrocare* denotes the act of hanging a condemned person, and by extension the state of a body so suspended following execution.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will surface almost exclusively in research touching on early medieval Germanic law, particularly the Salic Law (*Lex Salica*), and in glossaries or commentaries on old European penal practice. Researchers encountering it in primary sources should understand it as a technical term of execution and post-execution display, not merely a descriptive verb. The hanging of a body from a tree or gibbet in early medieval law was not simply the method of execution — it carried legal significance regarding the body's status and who held authority over it. The Salic Law passage preserved in Burrill makes this explicit: unauthorized removal of the body was itself a prohibited act, meaning the suspended corpse remained within the legal jurisdiction of the court. Researchers working on the history of capital punishment, the legal treatment of executed criminals, or the authority of early courts over the physical remains of condemned persons will find this term a useful entry point into that cluster of issues. It is largely absent from modern legal writing and will not appear in statutory or case law research. Its value is confined to historical and comparative legal scholarship.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the principal English-language legal dictionary source for this term, and its treatment is concise but precise. Burrill traces the etymology carefully — linking *croc* to the French for hook — and cites Spelman as authority for the gloss *ab unco pendere* (to hang from a hook). He then quotes directly from the Lex Salica, Title 69, Section 2, which is the operative primary source: the provision penalizing anyone who removes a hanged man from the branch where he is suspended without the judge's consent. This Salic Law citation is historically credible and well-attested in scholarship on early Frankish law. Burrill offers no analysis beyond the definition and citation, which is typical for rare technical terms of this kind. Other major historical legal dictionaries — including Black's early editions and Bouvier's — do not appear to carry this term, leaving Burrill and Spelman's *Glossarium Archaiologicum* as the primary reference points in the Anglo-American legal dictionary tradition.
Jurisdictional Note
This term belongs to the Frankish legal tradition codified in the Lex Salica and has no application in any modern jurisdiction. It is of interest solely in the context of early medieval continental European law and comparative legal history.