Definition
Plevine is an archaic common law term from old English practice, drawn from Law French, meaning security by pledge — specifically the engagement or giving of a pledge as surety. The term appears primarily in the context of replevin of land, referring to the act or process by which a party offered pledges as security in order to obtain the release of land held or distrained. It describes both the security itself and the formal undertaking by which that security was given.
Why It Matters in Research
Plevine is a term of almost entirely historical relevance, appearing in medieval English legal texts rather than modern case law or statutes. Researchers encountering the term will find it chiefly in treatises and Year Book materials dealing with early forms of replevin, particularly the replevying of land as distinct from the more familiar replevin of personal property. The distinction matters: replevin of land was a recognized procedure in early English law that later fell away, and plevine belongs to that vanished procedural world.
The two sources cited in Burrill — Britton (c. 27) and Fet Assaver (§§ 24, 25) — are both thirteenth-century English legal texts. Britton is a systematic exposition of English law composed around 1290, attributed to John le Breton, and written in Law French. Fet Assaver is a lesser-known procedural treatise of the same era. Researchers working in medieval English legal history who encounter plevine in manuscript or early printed sources should look to these works for context. Neither text is in routine circulation, and both require access to specialized legal history collections or critical editions.
Because plevine belongs to the Law French stratum of English legal vocabulary, researchers should be alert to variant spellings and related forms. Law French terms were transcribed inconsistently across manuscripts and early printed editions, and plevine may appear in forms that differ slightly from the spelling standardized by later lexicographers. Burrill's entry preserves the Law French form of the term in context: "Si il cele plevine refusa" — "if he refuse this security" — which illustrates how the term functioned as a noun within a conditional procedural rule.
The term has no living role in modern common law jurisdictions. Its research value is confined to historical legal analysis, medieval property law scholarship, and the interpretation of early English legal sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive historical dictionary treatment identified for this term. Burrill correctly situates plevine in old English practice and law French usage, identifies its procedural context (replevin of land), and supplies two primary source citations — Britton and Fet Assaver — that anchor the term in its authentic medieval setting. The entry is brief but accurate in scope.
No broader synthesis across shelf sources is possible from the available materials. The term does not appear in later English legal dictionaries such as Bouvier or Black in a manner that would show evolution or reinterpretation. Its absence from those dictionaries is itself informative: plevine was sufficiently archaic by the nineteenth century that standard American legal lexicographers did not find it worth carrying forward. Burrill, whose dictionary is more historically oriented than Bouvier's, preserved it as a matter of legal antiquarianism rather than practical utility.
Jurisdictional Note
Plevine is a term of early English common law with no recognized application in modern American, English, or Commonwealth jurisdictions. It is relevant only to historical legal research concerning medieval English procedure.