Definition
A Law French term from old English practice meaning to put before, to present before a court, or to produce in court. The phrase describes the formal act of placing a document or other evidence before a tribunal for its consideration — the procedural act of tendering something to the court's inspection or judgment.
The term appears most characteristically in the compound phrase *mitter avant un fait*, meaning to produce or tender a deed in court. In this context, *fait* (deed) was the instrument most commonly subject to this act of formal presentation.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not entered as an English term.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered.
Editorial note: *Mitter avant* is pure Law French with no cognate in ordinary English. The COMMON LANGUAGE section is omitted.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to the technical vocabulary of early English common law pleading and practice, and it surfaces almost exclusively in Year Book sources and treatises drawing directly from them. Researchers will encounter it when working through medieval and early modern English pleading records, abridgments, or secondary works that trace the history of evidence production and documentary proof.
The key research trap is treating *mitter avant* as a freestanding doctrine rather than a procedural description. It does not name a rule or a right — it names an act: the physical or formal act of presenting something to the court. In Year Book practice, the phrase signals the moment at which a party put a deed or instrument into the record, which had downstream consequences for how that instrument was treated and what obligations it imposed.
Because the term disappears from active legal usage after the early modern period, researchers will not find it in American sources or in post-consolidation English practice. Its presence in a text is itself a dating signal — it marks the source as rooted in pre-modern English pleading forms. If you encounter *mitter avant* in a treatise or digest, you are almost certainly dealing with a passage that traces lineage directly to Year Book authority or to a writer summarizing Year Book practice (Fitzherbert, Brooke, Rolle, or similar abridgers).
Burrill's citation to *Yearb. M. 5 Edw. III. 119* is the anchor reference for this term in the historical dictionaries. Researchers consulting the Year Books should note that Year Book citations are notoriously inconsistent across editions and abridgments; the Mich. (Michaelmas) term, 5 Edward III corresponds to the early fourteenth century. Cross-checking against Fitzherbert's or Brooke's abridgments under the relevant subject heading may be necessary to confirm the passage.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries — Black's (both editions) and Burrill — are in complete agreement on this term. All three render the definition identically: to put before, to present before a court, to produce in court. This uniformity is not surprising; the term is narrow, its usage is archaic, and there is no competing interpretation.
Burrill adds the most useful content by providing the example phrase (*mitter avant un fait*) and the Year Book citation, which neither edition of Black's includes. Black's entries are essentially derivative of the same tradition and add nothing new. This is a case where Burrill's greater attention to primary sourcing makes it the more useful starting point for any serious historical inquiry.
What all three sources leave unaddressed is any discussion of the procedural consequences of *mitter avant* — what happened after a party produced a deed in this formal sense, how it affected the pleading posture of the case, or how courts treated the tendered instrument. Researchers seeking that level of procedural analysis must go beyond dictionary sources to the Year Books themselves or to histories of English pleading such as those by Maitland or Holdsworth.
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Jurisdictional Note
*Mitter avant* is exclusively a term of old English practice and has no recognized presence in American law. Researchers working in U.S. sources will not encounter it in operative legal contexts.
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