Definition
An archaic term of French-derived law French meaning an adjournment — specifically, the act of postponing or continuing a legal proceeding to another day or time. The term is a variant form closely related to the Latin *adjournare* and the French *ajourner*, denoting the formal act by which a court or deliberative body suspends its session to a specified future date. In practice, the term appears in older English legal records and reports as a procedural notation signaling that a case or hearing was carried forward rather than concluded.
The term is functionally equivalent to adjournment in modern usage and carries no substantive legal meaning independent of that concept.
Common Confusion
JOUENMENT and ADJOURNATUR are easily conflated in historical sources, and for good reason — they refer to the same underlying procedural act from different linguistic angles. ADJOURNATUR is the Latin past-tense formula ("it is adjourned") that closes a case entry in the old reports, while JOUENMENT is the noun form drawn from the law French tradition, denoting the act itself. Researchers encountering either term in early English reports should treat them as signaling a procedural continuance, not a substantive ruling or final disposition.
Why It Matters in Research
The principal research challenge with JOUENMENT is recognizing it when it appears — variant spellings are common in law French sources, and a researcher unfamiliar with the term may misread it as a substantive entry rather than a procedural notation. In the old reports (Year Books and their successors), procedural closings of this kind are routine and should not be mistaken for holdings or outcomes.
When searching Law Mind's historical corpus, be alert to variant spellings: *jovenement*, *jornement*, *ajornement*, and cognate forms all appear across medieval and early modern English legal records. The underlying concept of adjournment is stable; the orthography is not.
Because JOUENMENT signals incompleteness — a matter adjourned rather than decided — researchers tracking the resolution of a particular dispute must look to subsequent entries. A case that closes with a jouenment or its equivalent has no final disposition at that point in the record.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary addresses the concept obliquely through its entry on ADJOURNATUR, noting that the Latin formula "it is adjourned" was a frequent closing in the old reports, with Burrill and 1 Lord Raymond 6 cited in support. Bouvier does not provide a standalone entry for JOUENMENT as such, which itself reflects the term's status as a procedural artifact of the law French tradition rather than a term of art requiring doctrinal definition.
The gap in Bouvier is instructive: by the mid-nineteenth century, when Bouvier compiled his dictionary, the term had receded entirely into historical usage. Modern legal dictionaries do not carry it. Researchers relying solely on nineteenth-century or later reference works will find no direct entry and must reconstruct the meaning from cognate terms and context.
Jurisdictional Note
JOUENMENT is an English common law term of the pre-modern period. It has no meaningful independent usage in American law. Where the concept of adjournment is relevant in U.S. jurisdictions, modern statutory and procedural terminology governs entirely.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: Adjournment; Procedural Continuance; Law French in the Common Law Tradition