Definition
In medieval and early modern legal Latin, *infortiare* means to strengthen, fortify, or augment. The term appears primarily in procedural and feudal contexts where a legal instrument, judgment, court, or assembly was formally reinforced or enlarged — whether by adding members to a body, increasing the weight or authority of a record, or supplementing an existing legal proceeding. It is functionally synonymous with *afforciare* and shares its root in the French *enforcer*. The term carries no continuing technical meaning in modern common law but appears with some regularity in medieval Latin legal records, glossaries, and historical scholarship on English and Continental procedure.
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Common Confusion
INFORTIARE and AFFORCIARE are treated as equivalent terms by Burrill and Spelman. Researchers may encounter either form in historical sources referring to the same concept. The distinction, where one is drawn at all, is one of orthographic convention rather than legal substance. Neither should be confused with the unrelated term *Infortiatum*, which is the title given to the second part of the Digest of Justinian (the middle portion of the Digest, so named in medieval jurisprudence for reasons still debated by legal historians) — a coincidence of similarity that has produced occasional misreadings in transcription and cataloging.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval English, Norman, or Continental legal records will encounter *infortiare* most often in two contexts: the affiliation of additional jurors or suitors to a court (*afforcement* of a court), and the strengthening or augmentation of a legal process such as a writ or record. The practical procedural concept behind the term — adding members to a deliberative legal body to break a deadlock or satisfy a quorum requirement — is well-documented in English manorial and feudal court practice and is closely tied to the concept of *afforcement of the assize*.
The primary research trap is conflation with *Infortiatum*, the Justinianic Digest section. Catalogers and copyists working from manuscript sources have occasionally misattributed or misfiled references. When a source dated before 1600 uses a form of *infortiare* or *infortiatum*, context is the only reliable guide to which concept is intended: procedural strengthening versus a reference to Roman civil law texts.
Because the term's practical life is almost entirely pre-modern, it surfaces in Law Mind corpus research most reliably in: (1) glossaries and dictionaries of law Latin, (2) historical treatments of jury and assize procedure, and (3) scholarship on manorial court records. It is unlikely to appear in case law or statutory materials from any period after the early modern era.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives the definition tersely: "to strengthen or fortify," citing Spelman, and equates the term fully with *afforciare*. The entry is representative of Burrill's approach to archaic law Latin — accurate as a gloss but offering no procedural context and no guidance on the specific legal settings in which the term operated. Spelman's *Glossarium Archaiologicum*, which Burrill cites as the underlying authority, remains the deeper source for anyone needing extended treatment. Older law dictionaries generally handle this class of medieval Latin terms inconsistently: some fold them under the Anglicized derivatives (see *afforcement*), others list them only in the Latin form, and some omit them entirely. Researchers should not assume that absence from a particular historical dictionary reflects the term's actual frequency in the sources that dictionary purports to cover.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term belongs to the legal Latin common to medieval England and the Continent broadly and is not jurisdiction-specific in any modern sense. Its procedural application varied by local custom; English manorial and assize practice is the best-documented context for anglophone legal historians.
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