Definition
An Old English and Law French term meaning ill will, malicious practices, or crimes and misdemeanors generally. Found in early English legal records, malveilles served as a broad descriptor for wrongful conduct motivated by bad intent, encompassing both criminal acts and the malicious disposition underlying them. The term was not a precise charge or cause of action but rather a descriptive label appearing in ancient records to characterize wrongdoing of a willful or wicked nature.
Common Confusion
Burrill distinguishes malveilles from the closely related Law French term malveis (also spelled malveys), which meant "bad," "defective," or "faulty" in the narrower sense of procedural or technical deficiency — as in malveis briefe (bad or defective writ). The two terms share a common root and appear in similar archaic sources, but malveilles carries the moral and criminal connotation of ill will and misconduct, while malveis describes formal or technical inadequacy. Researchers encountering either term in Year Book materials should not conflate them.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of purely antiquarian significance. Researchers will encounter malveilles almost exclusively in transcriptions or discussions of early medieval English records, Year Books, and treatises that predate systematic common law categorization of crimes. Its value is contextual: the term signals a document or source of considerable antiquity, likely predating the consolidation of English criminal law into recognizable categories of felony and misdemeanor.
Because malveilles functioned as a general characterization rather than a legal term of art with defined elements, do not expect consistency in its application across sources. Its appearance in a record tells you something about the drafting era and the loose moral vocabulary of early legal writing, not about a specific doctrine or procedural rule.
The Bouvier entry is anomalous. One Bouvier passage appears to have been truncated or misfiled, bleeding into a discussion of mala prohibita and assumpsit — suggesting a typesetting or indexing error in the edition being used. Researchers relying on that passage should treat it with caution and cross-check against Bouvier's entries for MALA PROHIBITA and MALA IN SE, which address the conceptual territory that malveilles roughly anticipated: the distinction between inherently wrongful acts and acts wrong by reason of positive law.
The overlap between malveilles and the later developed concept of malice aforethought is thematic but not doctrinal. Malveilles did not give rise to malice aforethought through any formal legal lineage; they share a conceptual ancestor in the idea that wrongful intent is a necessary component of serious misconduct.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries treat malveilles as a historical curiosity rather than an operative legal term. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) give nearly identical entries — both citing Cowell's Interpreter as the authority — defining the term as ill will, crimes and misdemeanors, and malicious practices. Bouvier adds that the word appears in "some ancient records" with the meaning of malicious practices or crimes and misdemeanors, but the relevant Bouvier passage is incomplete and appears corrupted in the edition consulted.
Burrill is the most technically useful source here, because it draws the distinction between malveilles and the adjectival form malveis, citing Year Book references (T. 5 Edw. III. 23; H. 2 Edw. II. 33) for the latter. This makes Burrill the preferred starting point for researchers trying to distinguish between the two forms in archaic texts. Cowell's Interpreter (referenced by Black's) is the foundational primary authority for malveilles as a legal term, and researchers needing more context should consult that work directly.
None of the historical dictionaries provide a detailed analysis of how the term was used operationally, which reflects its nature: it was a word scribes and chroniclers used, not a term lawyers argued over in court.