Definition
A regardator is a forest official in medieval English law responsible for conducting the "regard" — a periodic survey and inspection of the royal forest. The regardator (plural: regardatores) was charged with examining the forest to assess its condition, identify encroachments, verify that no unauthorized assarting (clearing of land), waste, or purpresture had occurred, and ensure that the forest laws were being observed. The office was essentially that of a sworn inspector operating under the authority of the Crown.
Common Confusion
REGARDATOR vs. REGARDER: These are the same office rendered in different linguistic registers. Regardator is the Latin form found in medieval charters and legal instruments; regarder is the anglicized equivalent used in later common law treatises and English-language sources. Researchers will encounter both terms depending on the period and type of source. See REGARDER.
REGARDATOR vs. FORESTER: A forester was a standing forest official with ongoing enforcement duties; regardators served in a more episodic, inquisitorial capacity — conducting formal surveys at fixed intervals rather than exercising continuous jurisdiction. The offices could overlap in personnel but were distinct in function.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of medieval forest law that will appear almost exclusively in Latin sources, charter collections, and early English legal records. Researchers should be aware of several navigational points:
The term surfaces principally in documents connected to the Charter of the Forest (1217, confirmed 1225 and later), which regulated the administration of royal forests alongside Magna Carta. Burrill's citation to the Carta de Foresta, 9 Hen. III, c. 5 is the central primary source anchor. Any research into the regardator's duties must pass through that instrument.
The office operated within the elaborate hierarchy of forest administration, which included chief justices of the forest, wardens, verderers, foresters, and agisters. The regardator occupied an inquisitorial rather than a judicial or executive tier — a distinction that matters when tracing the disposition of forest offenses in plea rolls.
Because forest law was a specialized jurisdiction largely separate from the common law courts, researchers using standard common law dictionaries and digests may find the term underrepresented or absent. Specialized sources — Manwood's Treatise of the Laws of the Forest (1598, expanded 1615) and the later editions of Coke's writings on forest jurisdiction — are more useful guides to the institutional context.
The regard itself was conducted at fixed intervals (historically every three years) and generated records. If a research project involves medieval forest pleas, forest eyre records, or questions of encroachment on royal demesne woodland, the office of the regardator is a functional entry point into understanding how those records were produced and organized.
Latin forms vary slightly across manuscripts and printed editions. Researchers should treat regardatores, regardator, and the anglicized regarder as interchangeable when searching indices and finding aids.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the essential entry, quoting directly from the Carta de Foresta: "Regardatores nostri eant per forestas ad faciendum regardum" — "our regarders shall go through the forests to make regard." This quotation is both the definition and the primary authority Burrill cites, which is characteristic of Burrill's treatment of obscure medieval offices: he anchors the term to its foundational legal instrument and cross-references the anglicized form rather than elaborating the office's full institutional context.
The entry is lean by necessity. By Burrill's era (mid-nineteenth century), the office had long been obsolete as a living institution, and the practical interest was antiquarian and historical rather than operative. Researchers should not expect Burrill or contemporaneous dictionaries to provide the full administrative picture; for that, Manwood and the forest eyre records themselves remain essential.
No substantial divergence exists among historical dictionaries on this term, primarily because so few cover it. Jacob's Law Dictionary and Tomlin's Law Dictionary, which treat regarder in anglicized form, are consistent with Burrill's account. The Latin term is largely confined to sources engaged directly with medieval primary material.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to the English royal forest system and has no parallel in Scots law, Irish law, or colonial American legal systems. It is not a term of art in any contemporary jurisdiction.