Definition
In old English law, payn (also rendered pain or panis) meant bread. The term appears in Law French legal texts, particularly in connection with the medieval Assize of Bread and Ale, which regulated the types, weights, and prices of bread sold in England. Britton, reciting the provisions of the statute of 51 Henry III, enumerates several recognized varieties:
- Payn de coket: cocket bread, a standard commercial loaf of intermediate quality.
- Payn de gastel: wastel bread, a finer grade made from bolted flour.
- Payn de simenel: simnel bread, a high-quality bread associated with ceremonial or feast use.
- Payn de treyt: bread of treet, a coarser grade.
- Payn de toutz blees: bread of all grains, the coarsest variety, made from unsifted mixed grain.
The classification mattered legally because the assize assigned different weight and price regulations to each grade. A baker selling short-weight bread of any category was subject to penalties under the assize, and the classification determined which standard applied.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Payn as a standalone English word is archaic or dialectal; in modern usage it does not appear as a standard entry.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Bread." Attested in Piers Plowman, confirming the word's presence in Middle English literary as well as legal texts.
The gap here is one of register rather than meaning: payn in ordinary Middle English simply meant bread. In legal sources, however, the word carried a taxonomic weight — the regulated grades of payn were formal legal categories with enforceable commercial consequences, not merely descriptive terms for a foodstuff.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter payn almost exclusively in two contexts: transcriptions of Britton and related commentary on the Assize of Bread and Ale, and glossaries or annotations to medieval legal texts written in Law French. The term itself is not in active legal use and has no modern statutory or common law application.
Several navigational points are worth noting:
First, the spelling varies considerably across manuscript traditions and printed editions — pain, payn, panis, and pane all appear, sometimes within the same source. Do not assume a single spelling when searching historical indexes.
Second, the regulated grades of bread listed in Britton do not map cleanly onto modern food-law categories. A researcher tracing the history of consumer protection or food adulteration law will find the assize framework interesting as a precursor, but the specific grade names are not carried forward into later English statute law in any direct way.
Third, payn appears in close proximity in many legal dictionaries — including Burrill — to pays or pais (the country; a jury), a term with entirely separate legal significance. Researchers skimming entries should take care not to conflate or skip between the two.
Fourth, Britton's citation to 51 Hen. III (the Assize of Bread) is a genuine historical statute of Henry III's reign; researchers tracing this line should consult the Statutes of the Realm for the original text rather than relying solely on Britton's paraphrase.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary Law Mind shelf source for this term. His entry is brief and taxonomic, functioning essentially as a gloss on the Britton passage rather than an independent legal analysis. The value of the entry is its enumeration of the bread grades and its citation to Britton chapter 30, which anchors the term to a specific medieval legal text.
Burrill does not address the enforcement mechanism of the assize (the pillory for bakers who sold short-weight bread was a well-documented feature of medieval municipal law), and he does not trace any subsequent legal history for the term. This is not a deficiency so much as a reflection of scope: payn had no ongoing doctrinal life by the time Burrill was writing in the nineteenth century.
No other Law Mind shelf dictionaries provide entries for this term. The Webster's 1913 attestation confirms the ordinary English meaning but adds nothing to the legal analysis.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term belongs exclusively to the history of English law. It has no independent development in American, Scottish, or other common law jurisdictions, though the assize framework influenced early American colonial food regulation in a general sense.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Assize of Bread and Ale
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Law French: Glossary and Usage in English Legal Texts
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