Definition
An archaic Latin term from old European law meaning "to take" or "to seize." Appearing in early medieval legal texts, *prisare* denotes the act of taking or laying hold of something — whether property, goods, or persons — typically in an official or legally recognized capacity. The term belongs to the Latin vocabulary of early Frankish and continental European legal instruments rather than the common law tradition.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *prisare* will find it almost exclusively in early medieval Continental sources — Frankish capitularies, Merovingian and Carolingian decretals, and the glossarial literature that grew around them. Burrill's citation to the Decretum of Chlothar (Decret. Chlot. § 7) via Spelman places the term firmly in the pre-Conquest, pre-common-law stratum of legal Latin. It does not carry forward meaningfully into English common law materials, though cognate concepts — seizure, taking, distraint — do.
The principal research trap is conflation. Because *prisare* sounds related to the English "prize" (captured property, especially at sea) and to *prise* or *prisage* (a royal right of preemption over wine imports), researchers may assume a direct doctrinal lineage. The connection is etymological, not doctrinal. If you are tracing prize law or prisage, *prisare* is background only — useful for understanding root vocabulary, not for establishing legal doctrine.
The term is most useful to legal historians working on Carolingian or Merovingian legal texts, scholars of Spelman's *Glossarium Archaiologicum*, or researchers tracing the Latin roots of seizure-related concepts across Continental and English legal traditions. It is unlikely to appear in case law, statutes, or equity materials from any English-language jurisdiction.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is spare: "Hale's L. Lat. In old European law. To take. Decret. Chlot. § 7. Spelman." This tells the researcher three things — the term appears in Hale's legal Latin glossary, it is attributed to old European (Continental) law, and Burrill anchors it to a specific provision of Chlothar's Decretum via Spelman's glossarial work. No English common law authority is cited, which is itself informative.
No other major historical legal dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus — not Bouvier, not Black's early editions — appear to carry an entry for *prisare* as a standalone term. Its absence from those sources confirms that it did not achieve currency in English or American legal usage. Researchers should not expect to find it defined in the standard Anglo-American dictionary tradition; Burrill's inclusion reflects his broader scope, which encompassed Continental and historical Latin sources beyond the common law canon.
Spelman's *Glossarium* is the primary secondary source for contextualizing this term. Researchers working without access to Spelman should treat Burrill's entry as a signpost pointing toward Continental medieval sources rather than as a self-contained doctrinal definition.