Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning to throw down, break down, pull down, or abate. The past participial form, prostratus, means thrown down. The term appears in medieval legal texts in the context of physical demolition or destruction, particularly as applied to structures, nuisances, or encroachments subject to legal abatement.
Why It Matters in Research
Prosternere is a term of art found almost exclusively in medieval and early common law sources. Researchers are unlikely to encounter it outside of Latin legal texts, pleadings, or records from the period when law was conducted and documented in Latin — prior to the Pleading in English Act 1362 and, more completely, prior to the full anglicization of legal records in the eighteenth century. Its practical significance lies in abatement proceedings: when a court or official ordered something prostratum, the physical act of destruction was the legal remedy itself, not merely a consequence of it.
The primary hazard for corpus researchers is mistaking this term for rhetorical or non-technical Latin. In the sources where it appears, prosternere carries specific legal force — it is operative language, not descriptive flourish. When encountered in a writ, plea roll, or treatise, it signals an abatement remedy, not simply a narrative description of destruction.
Fleta, the primary source cited by Burrill, is a late thirteenth-century English legal treatise of uncertain authorship, written in Latin and closely modeled on Bracton. Researchers should treat Fleta citations as indicative of the Edwardian common law period. The relevant passage (lib. 4, c. 1, § 19) addresses abatement of nuisances or encroachments, a context that helps fix the precise legal application of the term.
Researchers working through plea rolls or early Year Books who encounter prosternere or prostratus should connect the term to abatement doctrine broadly — including abatement of nuisances, removal of purprestures (encroachments on the king's land or highway), and analogous remedial actions. The term is unlikely to appear in equity records or in sources postdating the Latinization of legal pleading.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole dictionary source for this term, and its entry is spare: a definition, the participial form prostratus, and a citation to Fleta. No additional historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus address prosternere independently, which itself signals that the term had limited circulation even among legal Latinists compiling reference works in the nineteenth century.
Burrill's citation practice is reliable, and the reference to Fleta lib. 4, c. 1, § 19 is traceable. Researchers should note that Burrill's entry also includes, immediately following prosternere, a brief notice on the Greek term Πρῶτα (Prota), referring to the first four books of Justinian's Digests. This adjacency is alphabetical accident, not substantive connection — the two entries are entirely unrelated.
No historical dictionary source surveyed provides a functional definition beyond Burrill's, and none provides case authority or statutory grounding. The term is effectively documented only through its appearance in Fleta and analogous medieval Latin legal literature.
Jurisdictional Note
Prosternere is confined to English legal history and has no recognized application in American, Scottish, or civilian legal traditions as a term of art. Researchers in comparative or civil law contexts should not expect to find the term operative in non-English medieval sources, though cognate Latin usage may appear in continental texts with comparable but non-identical meaning.