Definition
An archaic Anglo-French legal verb meaning "to swear" or "to take an oath." Derived from the Latin *jurare*, the term appears in early English legal texts to denote the act of swearing — as in the administration of an oath to a witness, juror, or officer. The conjugated form *jurgent* (they shall swear) appears in the same sources, indicating use in procedural mandates governing oath-taking.
JURER is not a noun and should not be confused with *juror* (a member of a jury). It is a verb form surviving in Law French, the formal legal register used in English courts from the Norman Conquest through the early modern period.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not listed as an English word in standard modern dictionaries. In French, *jurer* means "to swear" or "to curse."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered. The term had no common English circulation; it remained confined to legal and ecclesiastical Latin-French usage.
The gap here is one of register rather than meaning: *jurer* is a Law French technical term that never crossed into ordinary English. A researcher encountering it in a primary source should read it as a verb of procedure, not as a reference to a person.
Common Confusion
JURER vs. JUROR: The visual similarity is a persistent trap. *Juror* (from Latin *jurator*) is a noun — a person serving on a jury. *Jurer* is a verb — the act of swearing. Historical sources that abbreviate or use Law French script can make these appear identical at a glance. Burrill's entry is explicit: *jurer* means "to swear," not "one who swears."
JURER vs. JURARE: *Jurare* is the Latin infinitive from which *jurer* descends. In medieval legal documents, Latin and Law French forms are sometimes used interchangeably or in close proximity. The distinction is largely linguistic rather than functional — both denote the same procedural act — but recognizing which language a source is operating in helps date and situate the document.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will surface almost exclusively in very early English legal sources — primarily pre-Tudor Year Books, Bracton-era treatises, and texts such as Britton (the early fourteenth-century French-language law book from which Burrill draws both citations). Researchers working in that stratum of the Law Mind corpus should treat *jurer* as a procedural signal: when it appears, the surrounding text is likely establishing oath requirements for a specific class of persons or a specific proceeding.
The conjugated form *jurgent* ("they shall swear") is worth noting because it appears in mandatory procedural framings — the equivalent of a modern statutory directive. Seeing *jurgent* in a passage alerts the researcher that what follows is likely a description of who must take an oath and under what circumstances, which can be critical for understanding the procedural prerequisites of early common law actions.
Because Law French fell out of active legal use in England by the late seventeenth century (formally discouraged by statute under Cromwell and effectively extinct as a drafting language by the early eighteenth century), *jurer* has no living role in modern legal practice. It will not appear in contemporary statutes, rules, or cases. Its research relevance is purely historical and philological.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole historical shelf source for this entry, and its treatment is appropriately spare: a gloss of the term, its grammatical and etymological origin, and two citations to Britton. No further elaboration is offered, which reflects the term's narrow functional scope — it is a verb of procedure, not a term of art carrying doctrinal weight.
What Burrill does not address, and what the historical dictionaries generally pass over, is the broader procedural architecture within which *jurer* operated: the law of oaths, compurgation, and wager of law that made oath-swearing a central mechanism of early English legal proof. Researchers who need that context will find it not in dictionary entries but in treatises on early English procedure.
Jurisdictional Note
*Jurer* is specific to the Anglo-French legal tradition and has no direct counterpart or continuing use in American, Scottish, or civil law jurisdictions. Researchers in those traditions will encounter oath-taking vocabulary derived from Latin (*jurare*, *juramentum*) or from vernacular legal English rather than from Law French.