Definition
An archaic Law French verb meaning "to quash" — that is, to annul, vacate, or suppress a legal proceeding, writ, indictment, or order by judicial act. In the early common law courts, quasser was used as the operative term when a court declared a writ or indictment void or set it aside for defect of form or substance. It is the Law French root of the modern English legal verb "to quash," which remains in active use.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No standard entry for "quasser" exists in modern English; the term is not in general circulation.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed. Webster's 1913 reflects the anglicized form "quash" but does not include the Law French antecedent.
The term belongs entirely to the Law French vocabulary of the medieval English courts. Researchers encountering it should treat it as a direct functional predecessor to "quash" rather than as a distinct legal concept with independent meaning.
Common Confusion
Quasser and quash are the same operative concept at different historical moments in the language of the common law. Quasser appears in Year Book reports and other early records written in Law French; quash appears in modern pleading and procedure. A researcher who does not recognize quasser as the ancestor of quash may treat it as an unfamiliar or distinct action when reading early materials, when in fact it signals an identical procedural event: a court voiding or suppressing a proceeding.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval and early modern English legal records — particularly Year Books, plea rolls, and early case reporters — will encounter quasser rather than quash. The practical effect is identical, but the linguistic form shifts depending on the era of the source. Burrill cites Year Book entries from the reigns of Edward III and Henry VI, placing the term's active use in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Any corpus search for judicial annulment of writs or indictments in pre-Tudor materials must account for quasser and its conjugated forms (quasse, meaning "quashed," appears in the same sources) rather than relying solely on the modern anglicized vocabulary.
The transition from Law French to English legal terminology was gradual and uneven. Sources from the late fifteenth through seventeenth centuries may use quasse or quasser interchangeably with emerging English equivalents, creating indexing and search challenges in historical corpora. A result coded under quasser in one source may appear under quash, void, annul, or vacate in a near-contemporary source describing the same procedural event.
There is no doctrinal complexity unique to quasser itself — the concept it expresses (judicial suppression of a defective proceeding) is well developed under the modern entry for quash. The research value of quasser is almost entirely navigational: recognizing it on sight and knowing where it leads.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only source entry here, and it is appropriately terse: quasser is glossed as the Law French equivalent of "to quash," with quasse identified as the past participial form meaning "quashed." Burrill cites two Year Book references — Trinity term, 10 Edward III (c. 1336) and Michaelmas term, 8 Henry VI (c. 1429) — grounding the term firmly in the medieval Year Book tradition.
No further elaboration is offered by Burrill, which is appropriate: quasser is a procedural term of art whose doctrinal content is entirely carried by its modern successor. Historical dictionaries of Law French, such as those compiled by Kelham or Termes de la Ley, may offer additional context for researchers needing to situate the term within the broader Law French lexicon of the English courts.