Definition
A Latin term found in old English and Scottish legal records meaning to take, seize, or distrain. Namare appears as a verb in medieval Latin legal texts to describe the act of taking goods or chattels from a debtor or wrongdoer as a form of legal compulsion — the process more commonly known as distraint or distress. The act so described was the foundational step in the old self-help remedy by which a lord, landlord, or creditor physically seized another's moveable property to compel performance of an obligation or payment of a debt. The related noun forms namatio (or namiatio) denoted the act of distraining or impounding itself.
Derivative forms encountered in historical sources include namptus (adjective, meaning taken or seized) and namptum (noun, meaning the thing taken). These variants were used interchangeably in medieval pleadings and records depending on grammatical context.
Common Confusion
Black's Law Dictionary (1st edition) lists an unrelated abbreviation — "N. S." for "New Series" and "New Style" — immediately after the entry for namare, and the typesetting in some editions runs these together. Researchers encountering "N. S." in an old report citation should not interpret it as a reference to namare or distraint. The two entries are entirely independent. "New Series" refers to a restart in law report numbering; "New Style" refers to the Gregorian calendar reform. Neither has any connection to the substantive law of distraint.
Why It Matters in Research
Namare is a term you are more likely to encounter than look up — meaning it will appear in a Latin passage of a medieval plea roll, Year Book, or early Scottish record, and the researcher's need is recognition rather than research. Several points are worth holding:
First, the term is a verb, not a noun. When reading old Latin pleadings, namare will appear conjugated (namavit — he distrained; namaverunt — they distrained) and may not be immediately recognizable as the root. Burrill flags namptus and namptum as additional derivatives to watch for.
Second, the Scottish sources are a distinct track. Skene's De Verborum Significatione, a 16th-century Scottish legal glossary cited by Burrill, treats namare as operative in Scots law, where distraint procedures had their own procedural character distinct from English common law. Researchers working in Scottish records should consult Scots-specific sources rather than assuming English procedural law applies.
Third, namare is upstream of several better-documented terms. The substantive law of distress and distraint — the conditions under which it was lawful, the rules against pound breach, the remedies for wrongful distress — is developed under those English headings, not under namare. The Latin term is the verb of the act; the doctrine surrounding the act lives under distress, distraint, replevin, and related entries. Research into the legality or procedure of the taking should migrate quickly to those terms.
Fourth, in the Law Mind corpus, namare will appear primarily in: transcriptions of medieval records and plea rolls; glossaries and legal dictionaries from the 16th through 19th centuries citing Spelman and Skene; and secondary works on the history of distress as a common law remedy. It is not a term of modern operative law anywhere in the common law world.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries converge on the core meaning — to take, seize, or distrain — without meaningful disagreement. The variation is one of depth rather than substance.
Black's (1st edition) is thin, essentially a stub. Black's (2nd edition) improves the entry by adding namatio as the related noun and specifying the Scottish dimension, citing Spelman. Burrill goes furthest, noting the Saxon root (nam), citing both Spelman and Skene's De Verborum Significatione, and flagging the derivative forms namptus and namptum — details that matter when reading original Latin text rather than a translated summary.
All three sources correctly situate namare as a term of historical rather than current legal significance. None attempts to define the law of distraint under this heading; each treats the entry as a glossary function, identifying the term for a reader who encountered it in a source rather than explaining the doctrine it describes.
What the historical dictionaries do not provide: any guidance on how to find or read the primary sources in which namare actually appears, and no treatment of how distraint procedure differed between English and Scottish contexts despite citing a Scottish authority (Skene).
Jurisdictional Note
Namare appears in both old English and old Scottish legal records, but the underlying law of distraint operated differently in each jurisdiction. Scottish distraint had its own procedural rules and terminology. Researchers should not assume that English common law doctrine on distress applies to Scottish records using this term.