Definition
In old English law, to buy goods in a market. The term denotes the act of market purchase and is associated with the regulated commercial transactions that took place within recognized market settings under early medieval English law. It is a term of the historical common law and has no surviving operational use in modern legal practice.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term will find it exclusively in medieval and early English legal sources. Its significance lies not in any substantive legal rule attached to the word itself, but in its connection to the broader medieval framework governing market transactions — a framework that imposed specific legal consequences depending on where and how a sale occurred. Under early English law, a purchase made openly in a recognized market ("market overt") carried protections for the buyer that private sales did not, including the ability to acquire good title even from a seller who lacked it. Understanding mangonare situates a researcher within that market-overt context and signals that the source document is likely addressing questions of title, toll, or commercial regulation in a pre-Norman or early Norman setting.
The term appears rarely and only in antiquarian or historical legal dictionaries. Researchers working in primary sources — particularly Anglo-Saxon dooms, early English statutes, or Latin legal records — may encounter it without any surrounding explanation. The Rapalje & Lawrence citation to Leg. Etheld. c. 24 (the Laws of Æthelred) anchors the term firmly in Anglo-Saxon legislation, placing it before the Conquest and within a body of law concerned with market supervision, witness requirements for sales, and the suppression of clandestine transactions.
No modern legal corpus will use this term operationally. If it appears in a secondary source written after the eighteenth century, it is almost certainly used historically or illustratively rather than as living law.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition — to buy in a market — and none expand beyond it. The second edition of Black's reproduces essentially the same entry as the first, reflecting that no subsequent legal development required elaboration. Rapalje & Lawrence is the only source to provide a citation, pointing to the Laws of Æthelred, which gives the term its most useful historical anchor. None of the dictionaries explain the legal significance of market purchase under early English law or connect the term to the market-overt doctrine, which is the broader context that gives mangonare whatever legal weight it possessed. Researchers should treat the dictionary entries as a starting point and consult sources on Anglo-Saxon commercial law and the law of market overt for substantive analysis.
Jurisdictional Note
This term belongs exclusively to early English legal history. It has no counterpart in American law and does not appear in any surviving common law jurisdiction as operative legal terminology.