MANNIRE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

MANNIREAuthored

The Law Mind • 670 words

Definition

A Latin term from old European and medieval law meaning to cite or summon a person to appear in court and stand in judgment. Mannire was a formal act of compulsion initiated by the adverse party in litigation — a private summons directing an opponent to answer before a tribunal — as distinguished from citation issued by the court itself.

Common Confusion

Mannire and bannire are a matched pair and are easily conflated. Both terms denote citation to court in medieval law. The difference is structural: mannire is the summons issued by the adverse party; bannire is the summons issued by the judge. Confusing the two obscures which authority — private adversary or public tribunal — was understood to compel appearance in a given procedural context. When reading Latin legal texts from Frankish or early Germanic sources, the distinction should be tracked carefully.

Why It Matters in Research

Mannire is an archaic term of limited modern currency but meaningful historical specificity. Researchers working in medieval English law, Salic law, or comparative European legal history will encounter it primarily in Latin source texts and secondary commentaries drawing on Du Cange's Glossarium or Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum. Its chief research value is the distinction it preserves between party-initiated and judge-initiated process — a distinction that matters when analyzing early procedural systems in which the court's own authority to compel appearance was structurally separate from the adversary's right to demand it.

The term appears in the Lex Salica (Salic Law), making it relevant to Frankish legal history and the roots of early Germanic procedure. Researchers tracing the development of summons and citation from Roman through medieval practice will find mannire a useful marker for the private-summons strand of that tradition.

Do not expect mannire to appear in post-medieval English common law sources. By the time the common law tradition consolidated procedural forms, the term had been absorbed into or replaced by the broader vocabulary of summons, citation, and process. Its appearance in Black's and Bouvier's reflects those dictionaries' function as repositories of historical and civil law vocabulary, not evidence of the term's use in 19th-century practice.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four source dictionaries present substantially consistent accounts, differing mainly in depth and sourcing. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's each follow Du Cange closely in defining mannire as a party-initiated citation distinguished from bannire, which is a judge-initiated citation. This distinction is the functional core of the term across all sources.

Burrill goes further than the others in two respects. First, Burrill traces the Saxon root — manien, meaning to summon — giving the term a Germanic lineage consistent with its appearance in the Lex Salica. Second, Burrill provides a citation to the Lex Salica itself (tit. 1, §§ 1, 2, 3) and references Spelman, grounding the definition in primary and learned secondary authority rather than Du Cange alone. This makes Burrill the most useful starting point for a researcher who needs to trace mannire into its source texts.

Bouvier adds the parallel term mannopus in the same entry, noting "goods taken in the hands of an apprehended thief," and immediately transitions to manor — a reminder that Bouvier's entries at this point in the alphabet run together and researchers should read carefully to distinguish the headwords.

No source provides extended analysis or cross-references to common law procedure. The treatment across all four dictionaries is brief, consistent with a term included for historical completeness rather than active doctrinal relevance.

MANNIREmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

To cite any person to ap- pear in court and stand in judgment there. Du Cange. It differs from bannire, for although both words signify a citation, one is by the adverse party, the other by the judge. Jacob; Du Cange. MANNOPUS(Lat.). An ancient word, which signifies goods taken in the hands of an apprehended thief. MANOR (French, manoir). A house, residence, or habitation. It includes not only a dwelling-house, but also lands. See Co. Litt. 58, 108; 2 Rolle, Abr. 121; Merlin, Répert, Manoir; Serg. Land Laws of Penn. 195; 11 H. L. Cas. 83. Manor is also said to be derived original- ly either from Lat. manendo, remaining, or from Brit. maer, stones, being the place marked out or inclosed by stones. Webst: In English Law. A tract of land orig- inally granted by the king to a person of rank, part of which (terræ tenementales) was given by the grantee or lord of the manor to his followers. The rest he re- tained under the name of his demesnes (terræ dominicales). That which remained uncultivated was called the lord's waste, and served for public roads, and commons of pasture for the lord and his tenants. The whole fee was called a lordship, or barony, and the court appendant to the manor the court-baron. The tenants, in respect to their relation to this court and to each other were called pares curiæ; in relation to the tenure of their lands, copyholders (q. v.), as holding by a copy of the record in the lord's court. Originally a manor was a "highly com- plex and organized aggregate of corporeal and incorporeal things. It usually in volved the lordship over villeins and the right to seize their chattels. It was not a bare tract of land, but a complex made up of land and of a great part of the agricultural capital that worked the land, men and beasts, ploughs and carts, forks and flails." 2 Poll. & M. 143, 148. The franchise of a manor; i. e. the right to jurisdiction and rents and services of copyholders. Cowel. No new manors were created in England after the prohibition of sub-infeudation by stat. Quia Emptores, in 1290. 1 Washb. R. P. 30. In American Law. A manor is a tract held of a proprietor by a fee-farm rent in money or in kind, and descending to the oldest son of the proprietor, who in New York was called a patroon. 9 Seld. 291.