Definition
In old European law, to wound. A Latin term appearing in early medieval legal codes, used to describe the act of inflicting a wound upon a person. The term functioned as a verb in Latin legal texts rather than as a defined offense category in the modern sense, though its appearance in Germanic law codes signals the existence of formalized legal consequences for wounding injuries under early Frankish law.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-Norman or early medieval legal history will encounter plagare and its cognates primarily in Latin transcriptions of Germanic customary law, particularly the Lex Salica (Salic Law) and related Frankish codes. The term is not a doctrinal concept with ongoing legal life — it does not appear in English common law or any modern code — but it serves as a marker pointing to a broader system of tariffed injuries, in which specific wounds carried specific monetary penalties (compositiones) payable to the injured party or their kin.
The key navigational point: plagare is a term of access rather than doctrine. Encountering it in a source signals proximity to the Lex Salica's wounding provisions and to the broader Germanic wergild and bot framework. Researchers should treat it as a lexical bridge to comparative early law rather than a freestanding legal concept.
Be alert to the fact that Burrill and Spelman both draw on the Lex Salica directly. Their entries are thin by design — the term requires no doctrinal unpacking because its legal content lives in the tariff schedules of the code itself, not in a body of interpretive commentary. Later treatise writers do not develop plagare as a technical term because English law absorbed wound-related liability through its own vocabulary (maim, mayhem, battery) rather than importing Romano-Germanic terminology.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive historical entry, citing Lex Salica, title 16, section 2, via Spelman's Glossarium Archaeologicum. The entry is deliberately spare: Burrill defines plagare as simply "to wound" and provides no further elaboration, which accurately reflects the term's function as a straightforward descriptive verb in the source text rather than a term of art requiring jurisprudential interpretation.
Spelman's Glossarium, the underlying source Burrill cites, is the more complete reference for a researcher pursuing plagare in depth. Spelman situates the term within the Lex Salica's broader structure of compensatory payments for bodily injuries. The Lex Salica itself (in various recensions) enumerates wounds by type, location, and severity, assigning monetary values to each — a system that reflects the compositional logic of early Germanic law rather than punitive criminal justice.
What historical dictionaries collectively omit: there is no treatment of plagare in Blackstone, Coke, or the standard English common law authorities, because the term had no purchase in that tradition. Researchers should not expect to find the word functioning as precedent or authority in English legal proceedings at any period.
Jurisdictional Note
Plagare belongs exclusively to the legal vocabulary of early medieval continental law, principally Frankish and Salic sources. It has no jurisdictional footprint in English, Scots, or American law.