Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning "many" or "several." Appearing in medieval and early modern legal texts, *plusors* functions as a quantifier denoting plurality — more than one, or a number of persons or things considered collectively. Its primary legal relevance lies in its use within maxims and formulaic expressions of the civil and common law, particularly in contexts involving shared liability, penalties, and obligations among multiple parties.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in Law French sources — year books, early plea rolls, medieval statutes, and the older abridgments — will encounter *plusors* (and variant spellings including *plusours*, *pluseurs*, and *plusurs*) as a standard quantifier. The term carries no technical legal weight of its own; it is not a term of art but a functional word. Its importance is therefore navigational: recognizing *plusors* prevents misreading of passages where plurality of parties or subjects is legally operative.
The Digest passage cited by Burrill (Dig. 50.17.46) illustrates the doctrinal context in which the term most often appears: rules governing penalties and their recovery when multiple parties are involved. In that maxim, the principle is that when a penalty is exacted from one party on behalf of many, no one is compelled to restore it to that party. Understanding that *plusors* signals "many" or "several" in such passages is essential to parsing the legal logic correctly — misreading plurality as singularity would invert the meaning of the rule entirely.
Law French as a legal language was largely displaced in English practice by the late seventeenth century, but terms like *plusors* persist in older printed abridgments, law dictionaries, and commentaries that quote directly from Year Book sources without translation. Researchers using Fitzherbert, Brooke, or Rolle's Abridgment, or working with manuscript plea rolls, should treat *plusors* as a routine vocabulary item rather than a specialized legal concept.
No jurisdictional variation applies in modern practice; the term is purely of historical and interpretive interest.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source here, citing Kelham's *Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language* (1779) as the philological authority. Burrill's entry is brief — consistent with the term's status as a functional word rather than a doctrine — and is essentially a gloss: "many; several," followed by the Digest citation to illustrate use in context.
The Digest passage (Dig. 50.17.46, from the *De diversis regulis iuris antiqui*) is a rule of Roman law transmitted into the learned legal tradition, not a common law authority. Burrill's inclusion of it reflects the standard practice of mid-nineteenth-century law dictionaries in grounding Law French vocabulary in its civil law conceptual background. The pairing of the Norman French term with a Digest maxim is typical of how hybrid common law / civil law learning was presented to practitioners navigating older authorities.
Other major historical law dictionaries — Tomlin's, Bouvier's, Black's early editions — do not carry a standalone entry for *plusors*, suggesting it was regarded even then as a vocabulary matter rather than a legal concept requiring definition. Burrill's inclusion is the exception, likely prompted by his more comprehensive treatment of Law French terms as a category.
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