Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning "peace," appearing in early legal texts and pleading formulas. Burrill records two distinct uses:
1. In criminal pleading: *Encontre nostre pees* — "against our peace" — a formulaic phrase used in indictments and criminal writs to signal that the offense was committed in violation of the king's (or sovereign's) peace. This formula was standard in common law criminal pleadings and served as jurisdictional language establishing the crown's interest in the prosecution.
2. In conveyancing: The concord in a fine of lands. A "fine" in this context is the old conveyancing device — a fictitious legal proceeding used to transfer title to real property — and the *pees* referred to the agreement or concord that formed the operative heart of that transaction.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "pee" — a colloquial term for urination.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No relevant entry; the term in ordinary English usage had no legal significance by 1913.
The gap here is total. The modern common meaning is entirely unrelated to the legal term. *Pees* as a legal word is a Law French survival, not an English word at all in the relevant sense, and any encounter with it in a legal manuscript or pleading should be read exclusively in its archaic Law French context.
Common Confusion
Researchers may conflate *pees* with *pais* (also Law French, meaning "country," as in *trial per pais* — trial by jury) or with *paix*, the French cognate. All three terms share a common root in Old French but carry distinct legal meanings. *Pees* in the criminal pleading context also closely parallels the Latin *pacem* used in the same formula (*contra pacem nostram*), and the two forms appear interchangeably in bilingual writs and indictments. Do not assume that an abbreviated or phonetically rendered form in a manuscript is necessarily one rather than the other without examining surrounding context.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early English legal records — particularly plea rolls, indictments, and fine rolls from the medieval and early modern periods — will encounter *pees* as live legal vocabulary, not as a curiosity. Two navigational points are essential:
First, in criminal records, the phrase *encontre nostre pees* (or its Latin equivalent *contra pacem nostram*) is a signal phrase identifying a document as a criminal pleading. Its presence confirms crown jurisdiction and helps date and classify documents, since the formula persisted from medieval common law through the formal abolition of the criminal indictment formula in English law.
Second, in conveyancing records, *pees* as the concord in a fine of lands connects directly to the elaborate machinery of the common law fine — a conveyancing procedure that generated a specific record type (foot of fine) held in the Court of Common Pleas. Researchers tracing land title in English records before the nineteenth century will encounter fines regularly, and understanding the structural components — including the *pees* — is necessary to read these records correctly.
The term has no surviving operational use in modern law. It appears only in historical sources, so its practical significance is entirely a matter of document interpretation and source literacy.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the primary shelf source for this term. His entry is brief but covers both meanings — the criminal pleading formula and the conveyancing use — and cross-references *Peace* for fuller treatment of the sovereign peace concept. Kelham's *Norman-French Dictionary* (cited by Burrill) is the deeper authority on Law French vocabulary and would be the next resource for a researcher needing philological support.
Older common law dictionaries, including Jacob's *Law Dictionary* and Cowell's *Interpreter*, treat the criminal pleading formula under *Peace* or *King's Peace* rather than under *Pees* specifically, which means a researcher searching only under *Pees* in those sources may miss relevant material. Tomlin's *Law Dictionary* similarly routes the discussion through the peace concept. The conveyancing meaning is better handled in treatises on fines and recoveries — particularly Cruise's *Digest of the Laws of England Respecting Real Property* — than in general law dictionaries.
No modern legal dictionary of significance carries *pees* as a headword; by the late nineteenth century it had passed entirely into the domain of legal history and paleography.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to English common law and its direct derivatives. It has no operative meaning in American law, Scottish law, or civil law jurisdictions. Researchers in American colonial records may encounter it in early pleadings that copied English forms, but it carries no independent American legal significance.