Definition
Prise carries two distinct legal meanings traceable through the historical record.
1. (French law; maritime law) Captured property taken by naval force; prize. In this sense, prise designates enemy vessels, cargo, or goods seized at sea by a belligerent power in time of war. The term is the French cognate of the English "prize" and functions interchangeably with it in sources rooted in French maritime ordinances, particularly the Ordonnance de la Marine (1681).
2. (Old English law; feudal tenure) A royal prerogative by which the Crown claimed a portion of imported goods — particularly wine — as a toll or duty in kind. The Crown could take two casks of wine from each importing ship: one before and one behind the mast. Over time, this prerogative was commuted into a money payment known as butlerage. Prise in this sense is sometimes spelled "prize" in older English sources and should not be confused with the maritime capture meaning.
3. (Law French; archaic) Broadly, "a taking" — as in the phrase de prises del avers (takings of beasts), referring to the seizure of cattle. This usage reflects the root meaning of the term derived from prendre (to take) and appears primarily in Britton and related early common law texts.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To force something open with a lever; to pry. Also, to extract something difficult to obtain.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): An enterprise. [Obsolete.] (Used by Spenser.)
The gap between the common and legal meanings is substantial and runs in two directions. The modern common meaning (physical leverage, prying open) shares the French root but carries none of the legal content. The obsolete common meaning ("enterprise") is etymologically related to the martial and commercial seizure meanings in law but has entirely dropped from living usage. Researchers encountering "prise" in a legal document should resist the instinct to read it through either modern or obsolete common English: in a maritime or feudal context it is almost certainly a term of art with no ordinary-English equivalent.
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Common Confusion
Prise, prize, and pris(e) in Law French are frequently confused in historical materials, and the confusion is compounded by inconsistent spelling across centuries of English legal records. The maritime capture meaning (prise = captured vessel or goods) is functionally identical to the English "prize" in admiralty law; the feudal revenue meaning (royal prerogative over wine) is entirely distinct and unrelated to admiralty. Burrill distinguishes these by separate sub-entries but notes the shared derivation. Researchers who encounter "prise" in an early English source must first determine whether the document concerns maritime warfare, feudal tenure, or a general seizure of goods before assigning a meaning.
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Why It Matters in Research
Prise is a term that changes meaning depending on context — period, jurisdiction, and subject matter all determine which sense applies. Three practical traps warrant attention.
First, the feudal revenue sense (royal prise of wine) is largely extinct by the late medieval period, having been converted into butlerage. Sources from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are most likely to use "prise" in this sense; by the Tudor period, "butlerage" predominates for the same concept. Researchers working on Crown revenue, import duties, or prerogative rights in early English law should not assume continuity of usage across centuries.
Second, the maritime capture sense tracks closely with French and civil-law maritime sources, particularly the Ordonnance de la Marine and its descendants. Common law admiralty writers often translate the French prise directly as "prize" without flagging the linguistic shift. Researchers consulting French-language maritime sources alongside English admiralty materials should treat prise and prize as interchangeable in this context, but should verify which source tradition a given text draws from.
Third, the archaic Law French sense ("a taking" generally) appears in Britton and related early texts in formulaic phrases such as de prises del avers. These are not prize cases and not feudal wine tolls; they concern distress and the taking of cattle. The presence of the word "prise" in an early pleading or Year Book passage does not by itself locate the document in maritime law.
Burrill's cross-reference to Emerigon's Traité des Assurances is the most useful pointer for researchers working on the maritime sense: Emerigon is the foundational civil-law source on marine insurance and prize, and the Law Mind corpus likely includes related encyclopedia entries on those topics.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on the maritime capture meaning as the primary legal definition, all citing the Ordonnance de la Marine (Ord. Mar. liv. 3, tit. 9) as the root authority. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) treat prise as a straightforward French-law term equivalent to prize, with the 2nd edition adding a Massachusetts case (Dole v. Insurance Co., 6 Allen 373) as an American admiralty reference point.
Burrill is substantially richer. He traces the derivation from prendre explicitly, offers the feudal "taking of beasts" sense via Britton, and cross-references both the maritime prize meaning and the broader category of capture by naval force with a pointer to Emerigon. Burrill also flags the Law French phrase la torcenoûse prise et la torcenoûse detenue (the wrongful taking and the wrongful detention) — a phrase that appears in early common law pleading — demonstrating that "prise" functioned as a general term of seizure well beyond the maritime context.
What the historical dictionaries collectively underweight is the feudal wine-prise meaning. Black's (1st edition) addresses it in the surrounding text but does not give it a standalone definition under PRISE. Researchers relying solely on Black's for this term may miss the feudal prerogative dimension entirely. Burrill's treatment, while broader, also does not fully develop the commutation-to-butlerage history. Stephen's Commentaries (2 Steph. Comm. 561), cited in Black's surrounding text, remains the clearest source for that strand of the term's legal history.
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Jurisdictional Note
The maritime capture sense of prise is principally relevant to civil-law and mixed jurisdictions with deep French maritime law influence — France, Louisiana, and Quebec most prominently — as well as to international prize law generally. English admiralty absorbed the concept under the anglicized "prize" and developed its own body of prize court procedure. The feudal prise of wine was exclusively an English Crown prerogative with no direct analogue in other legal systems.
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