Definition
A fine or monetary payment owed to a feudal lord by a tenant of inferior status whose daughter had been sexually violated or seduced. Ourlop was a form of manorial exaction — a payment collected not as compensation to the victim or her family in any modern sense, but as a levy to the lord for the breach of his economic and social interest in the chastity of female dependents within his domain. The term is essentially obsolete and is encountered only in historical legal sources dealing with feudal tenure and manorial custom.
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Common Confusion
Ourlop is frequently equated with **lierwite** (also spelled lairwite or leyerwite), and the two terms are closely related but not identical. Lierwite was the fine levied on an unfree woman for fornication committed without the lord's license. Ourlop, by contrast, is described as the fine paid *by the tenant* — specifically the father — to the lord when his daughter was debauched. The distinction matters to researchers: lierwite focuses on the woman's act, while ourlop focuses on the father's obligation arising from the defilement of his daughter. In practice, the terms were sometimes used interchangeably in manorial records, and the boundary between them was not always observed by historical scribes.
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Why It Matters in Research
Ourlop is a narrow term of manorial law with no modern legal survival. Researchers will encounter it only when working in:
1. **Medieval English manorial records and court rolls**, where variant spellings — including *ourlope*, *urlop*, or similar forms — may appear.
2. **Historical legal dictionaries and glossaries**, particularly Cowell's *Interpreter* (1607), which is the cited authority in both editions of Black's and is the proximate source for the term's inclusion in later dictionaries.
3. **Feudal tenure scholarship**, where ourlop sits alongside other manorial penalties (merchet, lierwite, childwite) as evidence of the lord's pervasive control over the reproductive and social lives of villeins and their families.
The key research trap is treating ourlop as a uniform, well-defined institution. Manorial custom varied enormously by locality and era in medieval England. A researcher who encounters the term in a primary source should consult the specific manor's court rolls or customals rather than relying on dictionary definitions alone to determine its precise local meaning and incidence.
The second edition of Black's contains what appears to be a typographical error — "inferlog" in place of "inferior" — which has no independent legal significance but serves as a reminder that historical dictionary reproductions can introduce transcription errors that should not be treated as authoritative textual variants.
Ourlop also connects to the broader legal history of **merchet** (the fine paid for a villein's daughter to marry) and illustrates the general principle that under villeinage, the lord's permission was required — or his compensation demanded — for major life events affecting unfree tenants and their families.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary define ourlop identically in substance, citing Cowell as the sole authority. John Cowell's *Interpreter* (1607) was a standard reference for archaic and feudal legal terminology, and Black's incorporation of the definition without independent elaboration reflects the term's purely historical status even by the time Black's first edition appeared (1891).
Neither edition of Black's offers additional explanation of the mechanics of the fine, its amount, or its enforcement — reflecting that by the nineteenth century, the term had no practical legal relevance and was being preserved as a glossary item rather than as a living concept. The slight textual discrepancy between the two editions ("inferior" versus "inferlog") is almost certainly a typesetting error in the second edition and should not be read as a substantive variation.
No significant divergence exists between the two dictionary sources on meaning. Both point the researcher back to Cowell, making *The Interpreter* the authoritative primary text for any deeper inquiry.
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Jurisdictional Note
Ourlop was a feature of English feudal and manorial law specifically. It has no recognized counterpart in Scottish, Irish, or continental European legal systems under this name, and it passed out of operative law with the dissolution of villeinage and the manorial system in England. No American jurisdiction recognized or applied this concept.
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