Definition
In old English law, a type of raft or boat. The term appears in historical English legal records as a designation for a watercraft, though its precise construction or distinguishing characteristics relative to other vessel types are not consistently described in surviving sources.
Why It Matters in Research
Oarabus is a rare term with extremely limited presence in the legal corpus. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in medieval English legal documents, particularly those touching on river rights, port customs, tolls, or maritime obligations where specific vessel classifications determined applicable duties or fees. Because legal rights and obligations under old English law frequently turned on the type of vessel involved — different craft attracting different tolls, customs, or jurisdictional treatment — precise vessel terminology had genuine legal significance even when the underlying distinctions are now obscure.
When researching historical watercraft terminology in English law, treat any single-source term with caution. The appearance of oarabus in a document should prompt cross-referencing with contemporaneous records to confirm meaning in context, as variant spellings and loose usage were common in medieval legal Latin and Law French sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd ed., Supplemental) defines oarabus as "a kind of raft or boat," citing Spelman. The reference is to Sir Henry Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum, the standard authority for archaic English legal and ecclesiastical terminology. Beyond this single entry, the term does not appear to have received treatment in other major historical legal dictionaries, including Bouvier, Tomlin, or Jacob. The thinness of coverage across the historical dictionary shelf reflects the term's extreme rarity in legal practice and its confinement to a narrow slice of medieval records.
Researchers should note that Spelman's glossary, while authoritative for its era, was compiled in the seventeenth century from earlier sources and occasionally reflects interpretive uncertainty about terms that had fallen out of active use well before his time. The definition "a kind of raft or boat" should be understood as a best reconstruction rather than a precise technical specification.