Definition
A Law French term meaning dumb or mute — that is, unable or unwilling to speak. In historical English legal practice, muet described a defendant who stood silent at arraignment rather than entering a plea. The term appears in procedural records and legal pleadings of the common law courts, most prominently in the phrase "ne sourds ne meutz" (neither deaf nor mute), which was used to affirm that a party or witness possessed the capacity to participate in legal proceedings.
The concept carried significant procedural consequences: a defendant found to be standing mute — whether by genuine incapacity or by deliberate refusal — triggered a separate inquiry into the cause of silence. If the court determined the silence was willful rather than caused by an act of God, severe procedural penalties followed under early common law, including peine forte et dure (pressing) as a means of compelling a plea.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Muet is not a standard English word; it is a French adjective meaning mute, silent, or speechless.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as an English entry; the concept of "mute" in English denotes a person who cannot or does not speak.
The legal significance of muet goes well beyond the ordinary sense of silence. In the common law procedural context, standing mute was not merely a passive condition — it was a legally consequential act with formal procedural responses. The distinction between mute by visitation of God (genuine incapacity) and mute of malice (willful refusal) was a structured legal determination, not a medical or colloquial one.
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Common Confusion
Muet (the Law French procedural term) should not be conflated with mutus (its Latin counterpart in the civil law), though the two share the same root and general meaning. Burrill's entry blurs this line by transitioning mid-definition from the Law French procedural term into civil law discussion of movables (mobilia and moventia), an apparent editorial compression that may mislead researchers. The civil law material in Burrill's entry on muet properly belongs under a separate headword and reflects either a typographical run-on or an editorial artifact of the original dictionary. Researchers encountering Burrill's entry should treat the civil law content as misplaced rather than as a substantive gloss on muet.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early English criminal procedure records — plea rolls, arraignment records, or treatises on criminal practice — will encounter muet and related phrases as technical markers of a defendant's procedural posture at arraignment. The term signals a branch point in the proceeding: the record will typically reflect whether the court found the defendant mute by visitation of God or mute of malice, each path leading to distinct procedural outcomes.
The Burrill entry for muet is unreliable as a standalone reference because it conflates two distinct concepts under one headword. The Law French procedural term and the civil law discussion of movables (which Burrill links to Dig. 50.16.93 and Calvin's Lexicon) are unrelated, and the transition between them in Burrill's text is unexplained. Any researcher relying solely on Burrill for the meaning of muet in a criminal procedure context risks confusion.
Jurisdictional and temporal scope matters here: muet as a live procedural term belongs to pre-modern English common law. By the nineteenth century, standing mute at arraignment was addressed by statute in both English and American jurisdictions, with silence typically treated as a not guilty plea by operation of law. The Law French terminology largely disappeared from active use but persists in historical records and treatises.
Cross-corpus connections: researchers following the procedural consequences of muet will need to move to related entries on arraignment, plea, peine forte et dure, and the distinction between civil and criminal capacity. The civil law material Burrill appended belongs in the movables/moventia chain.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the primary historical dictionary source available for this entry, and it provides the core definition accurately: muet is Law French, derived from the Latin mutus, meaning dumb or mute. The phrase "ne sourds ne meutz" (neither deaf nor mute) is correctly identified as a term of art used to affirm a party's legal capacity.
However, Burrill's entry is editorially compromised. After identifying muet in its Law French criminal procedure context, the entry shifts without explanation into a discussion of the civil law term mobilia (movables), citing the Digest and Brissonius. This material has no substantive connection to muet as a procedural term. It appears to reflect either a compositor's error in the original printing or an editorial decision to group Latin and Law French terms by phonetic similarity rather than legal meaning. No other standard historical dictionary of English law (Tomlin, Bouvier, Black) supports treating muet and movables as related concepts.
What Burrill does not cover: the procedural mechanics triggered by a finding of muet — the jury of inquiry, the distinction between mute by visitation of God and mute of malice, or the historical role of peine forte et dure — are absent from the entry entirely.
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Jurisdictional Note
Muet as a live procedural term is specific to the historical English common law. American courts inherited the underlying doctrine but rarely used the Law French terminology in American records. Modern Anglo-American practice has fully superseded the concept by statute, treating silence at arraignment as a not guilty plea.
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