Definition
Que is a Law French and Law Latin particle appearing frequently in medieval legal texts, writs, and formulaic legal instruments. It functions grammatically in three principal ways:
1. As a conjunction meaning "that" or "so that" — used to introduce dependent clauses in legal declarations, ordinances, and conditions. Example construction: volons que si ("we will that if").
2. As a relative pronoun meaning "who" or "which" — appearing in descriptions of parties, their obligations, or their actions. Example constructions: cely que homage doit faire ("he who ought to do homage"); les services que à vous appendent ("the services which belong to you").
3. In French legal procedure (secondary, modern usage): Bouvier records que as shorthand reference to an officer charged with prosecuting crimes under French procedure, corresponding roughly to a prosecuting attorney in the United States. This usage is functionally obsolete in Anglo-American legal research and is noted here only for completeness. See JUGE D'INSTRUCTION.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A Chinese surname from Hokkien; a surname from Catalan.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A half farthing (obsolete).
Neither common meaning has any bearing on legal usage. The legal significance of que is entirely grammatical and linguistic — a function word embedded in Law French and Law Latin legal formulae. Researchers encountering que in a legal instrument should treat it as a structural particle governing the grammatical relationship between clauses, not as a term with substantive legal content of its own.
Common Confusion
Que is sometimes passed over in reading Law French texts because modern readers associate it with Spanish or casual English abbreviation. This is a mistake in legal paleography: que in a legal instrument is almost always Law French or occasionally Law Latin in Anglicized form, and its grammatical role — whether "that," "who," or "which" — must be identified correctly to parse the legal meaning of the surrounding clause. Misreading the relative pronoun use (who/which) as a conjunction (that) can distort the sense of conditions, obligations, and property descriptions in early common law documents.
Why It Matters in Research
Que appears with high frequency in Law French sources — Britton, Bracton, Littleton's Tenures, Year Books, and related medieval materials — and in the Law French formulary of writs. Researchers working with pre-1730 English legal documents (before Law French was abolished by statute) will encounter que constantly, typically without translation or gloss.
The critical navigational point: que is not a stand-alone term with a fixed legal definition. Its meaning shifts by grammatical position within the sentence. Researchers must parse the full clause structure before translating. The sub-entries gathered under que in Burrill's Law Dictionary — cely que, ceux que, issi que, volons que — are more useful research anchors than que alone; when searching for a specific phrase encountered in a primary source, look for those compound forms rather than que in isolation.
The Bouvier entry (prosecuting officer) applies exclusively to French civil law procedure and is irrelevant to Anglo-American common law research. Do not import it into a common law context.
For corpus researchers: que-containing phrases will appear in Law Mind sources dealing with feudal tenures, writs of right, homage, and service obligations. Cross-referencing with HOMAGE, SERVICE (feudal), and WRIT entries will help locate surrounding doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the more useful source here. Burrill treats que as a grammatical entry with illustrative examples drawn from Britton, providing the relative pronoun, conjunction, and article functions with period quotations. This approach — listing compound phrases built on que — is the practical one, since que has no legal content apart from its role in those phrases.
Bouvier's entry is narrow and singular, addressing only the French procedural officer. The two dictionaries are not in conflict; they are addressing entirely different meanings of the same particle, and researchers should consult both with awareness that the entries do not speak to the same phenomenon.
Neither dictionary provides a comprehensive treatment of que's grammatical range in Law French. For fuller coverage, researchers should consult specialized Law French glossaries such as those appended to early editions of Britton or Giles Jacob's New Law Dictionary, which catalogues common Law French particles systematically.