Definition
Quartering carries two distinct legal meanings that share almost no conceptual overlap. Context — criminal law history versus constitutional law — determines which applies.
1. POST-EXECUTION DISMEMBERMENT (historical criminal law): The division of an executed criminal's body into four parts as a component of punishment for high treason under English law. In the full formula of "hanged, drawn, and quartered," the condemned was hanged, disemboweled while still alive or immediately after death, and then the body was severed into quarters. The parts were typically displayed publicly as a deterrent and symbol of sovereign authority. This punishment is now entirely abolished and exists in legal sources only as a historical artifact.
2. BILLETING OF SOLDIERS (constitutional law): The compelled housing of military personnel in private residences, either with or without the owner's consent. This is the meaning embedded in the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the quartering of soldiers in any house without the owner's consent in peacetime, and restricts it in wartime to conditions prescribed by law. This meaning has independent constitutional significance and remains technically operative, though rarely litigated.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Primarily nautical and mechanical — describing wind or wave direction coming from aft and to one side of a vessel, or mechanical components set at right angles to one another.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Consistent with Wiktionary: nautical usage describing wind or waves coming from a point well abaft the beam, and mechanical usage describing components at right angles.
Editorial note: The common English word "quartering" is almost entirely disconnected from either legal meaning. A researcher encountering "quartering" in a nautical or engineering context will find no legal relevance. The legal meanings derive from distinct root uses of "quarter" — the body divided into four parts, and the provision of lodging (a "quarter" as shelter). Neither connects to the directional or angular meanings dominant in ordinary usage.
Common Confusion
The two legal meanings of quartering are rarely confused with each other because their contexts are entirely different. The more common research error is treating quartering solely as a historical curiosity — relevant only to abolished English punishment — and overlooking its constitutional dimension. Conversely, researchers focused on Third Amendment scholarship may not connect the term to its criminal law history, which helps explain the visceral weight the Founders attached to government power over the body and home. The two meanings share a common thread: state power imposed on the individual without consent.
Why It Matters in Research
The criminal law meaning is effectively closed. It appears in English sources from roughly the medieval period through the nineteenth century and was never transplanted into American law as a permissible punishment. Researchers encountering "quartered" in historical English criminal records or treason proceedings should understand the term as a fixed historical formula, not a variable one. Black's and Burrill's both point directly to Blackstone's Commentaries Book IV as the authoritative source; Bouvier's account of horses tearing the condemned reflects an older Continental variant that diverges from the standard English practice of post-execution division. That divergence is worth noting when evaluating sources.
The constitutional meaning is where active research complexity lies. The Third Amendment is the least-litigated provision of the Bill of Rights, and its doctrinal development is sparse. Researchers working on privacy, property rights, federalism, or the constitutional status of the military in domestic affairs will find the Third Amendment undertheorized but potentially significant. The Amendment has been invoked — rarely and mostly unsuccessfully — in cases involving government intrusion into the home. Its incorporation against the states remains unresolved by the Supreme Court, making jurisdictional assumptions unreliable. Researchers should be alert to the fact that historical legal dictionaries, including both editions of Black's represented here, define quartering exclusively through the criminal law lens and do not address the constitutional dimension at all. That silence reflects the era of compilation, not the term's full legal significance.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries — both editions of Black's, Bouvier's, and Burrill's — treat quartering solely as an English criminal law term, uniformly anchored to the punishment of high treason. Black's (both editions) and Burrill's are essentially identical, each citing Blackstone's Commentaries Book IV, Chapter 6 (4 Bl. Comm. 93) as the controlling reference. This consistency suggests the compilers were working from the same source tradition rather than independently synthesizing the term.
Bouvier's diverges in one notable respect: his description invokes four horses tearing the body apart rather than the post-execution division described by Blackstone. This reflects confusion between the English common law practice (division after hanging and drawing) and an older or Continental method. The Bouvier account is likely less accurate as a description of standard English treason punishment, and researchers relying on Bouvier for historical precision on this point should cross-check against Blackstone directly.
None of the historical dictionaries acknowledge the constitutional meaning of quartering. This is a significant gap. The Third Amendment was ratified in 1791, well within the timeframe these dictionaries would have been expected to address. The omission likely reflects the Amendment's near-total absence from litigation and doctrinal development rather than any editorial oversight, but it means the historical dictionaries are incomplete guides to the term's full legal scope.
Jurisdictional Note
The criminal law meaning was English law only and was never received into American criminal practice. The constitutional meaning is federal by origin, but its application to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment has not been definitively resolved by the Supreme Court. Researchers working on state-level questions involving government access to private property for military purposes should not assume Third Amendment doctrine applies without independent analysis.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Third Amendment — Quartering of Soldiers (Historical and Modern Relevance), The Law Mind Constitutional Law Encyclopedia (constitutional_121)