Definition
A Law French term meaning "answer." Used in medieval English court practice as a judicial direction commanding a party to respond to a pleading or charge. The term appears most prominently in the compound phrase *respondes oustre* — "answer over" — which designated a specific form of court judgment directing a party to proceed past a preliminary objection and answer the substance of the opposing party's claim. In this usage, *respondes oustre* was not a final judgment on the merits but a ruling that a preliminary plea or defense was insufficient to end the proceeding, and that the case must move forward.
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Common Confusion
*Respondes* and *respondes oustre* are sometimes read as interchangeable, but the distinction matters. *Respondes* is the bare imperative — "answer" — while *respondes oustre* is the specific compound judgment of procedural consequence, meaning the court has overruled a dilatory or preliminary plea and is ordering the defendant to answer the main action. Researchers encountering either form in Year Book materials should determine which construction is present before interpreting the procedural posture of the case.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially confined to the Year Books and the early common law pleading tradition. Researchers working in Law French sources from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries will encounter *respondes* and *respondes oustre* with regularity; Burrill's citation to the Year Books of Henry VI's reign (*P. 3 Hen. VI. 13; T. 4 Hen. VI. 5, 11; M. 8 Hen. VI. 22; M. 20 Hen. VI.*) reflects how formulaic this language was across that period. It appears *passim* — throughout — in the Year Books, signaling its status as a standard term of art in judicial speech rather than a term of occasional or specialized use.
The key research trap is misreading *respondes oustre* as a judgment on the merits. It was not. It was a procedural ruling: the court found a preliminary plea — typically a dilatory plea, a plea to the jurisdiction, or a plea in abatement — insufficient to arrest the action, and ordered the defendant to answer the declaration itself. Understanding this prevents researchers from miscounting outcomes or mischaracterizing the procedural history of a Year Book case.
Because this term belongs entirely to the Law French pleading vocabulary and has no living usage in modern practice, it is unlikely to appear in any contemporary source. Researchers encountering it outside Year Books or early common law treatises should treat that appearance with caution.
The encyclopedia cross-reference to *Divorce — Personal Jurisdiction Over the Respondent Spouse* reflects the conceptual lineage from *respondes* to the modern term "respondent" — the party required to answer in a proceeding — but the terms are historically and functionally distinct. The modern procedural respondent descends from this tradition without carrying any of the specific Year Book meaning.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source here and provides the essential treatment. Burrill correctly identifies *respondes* as Law French for "answer" and accurately characterizes *respondes oustre* as a judicial formula appearing in the Year Books. His citation string is specific and verifiable, pointing to Trinity and Michaelmas terms of Henry VI's reign. No other historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus cover this term, which reflects the term's narrow vintage and its essentially archival character by the time the major nineteenth-century dictionaries were compiled. Burrill's entry is brief but accurate; it neither overstates the term's significance nor misidentifies its grammatical or procedural function. There is nothing to correct in his treatment, though researchers should note that Burrill does not discuss the range of preliminary pleas that *respondes oustre* was used to overrule — a gap that early common law pleading treatises and the Year Books themselves must fill.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Divorce — Personal Jurisdiction Over the Respondent Spouse (The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia) — for the modern procedural concept of "respondent" in contested proceedings, which shares etymological lineage with *respondes* but operates under entirely different doctrinal rules.
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