Definition
An obsolete term from old English law denoting the time and place appointed by the sheriff for the collection of the king's revenues after the close of the county court. The phrase translates literally as "after-county," signifying proceedings that occurred in the period following the formal sitting of the county court rather than during it. The sheriff used this occasion to receive moneys owed to the crown that had been adjudicated or otherwise determined during the court's session. It stands in contrast to the open county court itself, where matters were publicly heard and determined.
Common Confusion
Rier county is not the county court itself, nor is it a separate judicial proceeding. It is specifically the post-court administrative moment — the collection interval — that followed the county court's business. Burrill's Law Dictionary notes Fleta's description of it as the "day after the county" (dies crastinus post comitatum), which clarifies that the term refers to a temporal and procedural sequel, not a distinct institution. Researchers should not conflate it with retrocomitatus, its Latin equivalent, which appears in some sources as a separate headword but describes the same institution.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a fossil of medieval English fiscal and administrative procedure and is unlikely to appear in any live legal context. Researchers encountering it will do so almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal texts, treatises on sheriff's duties, or historical scholarship on county court administration.
Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, the term's spelling varies across historical sources. The Latin form retrocomitatus (literally "after-county") is the form most likely to appear in manuscript sources and in Fleta, the 13th-century legal treatise. Burrill explicitly provides retrocomitatus as the Latin equivalent, so researchers using Latin indices or searching medieval records should use that form rather than the anglicized rier county.
Second, Fleta (lib. 2, c. 67) is the primary source cited by Burrill that offers the most specific description — the "day after the county." Researchers seeking original authority rather than dictionary synthesis should consult Fleta directly.
Third, the term belongs to a cluster of concepts governing the sheriff's financial accountability to the crown, a subject deeply embedded in the eyre system and the development of the Exchequer. Understanding rier county in isolation risks missing its functional context: it was part of the machinery by which the crown extracted and audited revenue through the county apparatus. Researchers working on fiscal feudalism, sheriff's accounts, or the pipe rolls will find rier county intelligible only when read alongside that broader administrative framework.
Finally, this term has no modern American or English legal equivalent. Any appearance in a contemporary legal document would be archaism or error.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical sources — Black's Law Dictionary, Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.), and Burrill's Law Dictionary — are in complete agreement on the core definition: rier county is the time and place appointed by the sheriff for receiving the king's money after the close of the county court. The definitions are nearly verbatim across all three, each citing Cowell's legal dictionary as the underlying authority.
Burrill adds meaningful depth by supplying the Latin equivalent retrocomitatus and the Fleta citation, which locates the term within a specific named treatise source rather than relying solely on Cowell. This is the most useful historical entry for a researcher seeking to trace the term to primary authority.
What the historical dictionaries do not provide is any procedural detail about how the rier county was conducted, what disputes arose from it, or how it related to the sheriff's accounting obligations at the Exchequer. Researchers seeking that context must move beyond the dictionaries to the broader literature on medieval English administration.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to old English law and has no recognized equivalent in any American jurisdiction. It does not appear in the common law as received and developed in the United States. Researchers should treat it as a term of purely historical and English provenance.