Definition
An archaic English legal term designating a person who has been robbed or deprived of money or goods by theft, and who has given surety — that is, pledged a guarantor — to prosecute the felon by fresh suit (meaning immediate pursuit or prosecution). The sakabere was not merely a victim; the term carried procedural significance, identifying the complaining party who had formally bound themselves to pursue the criminal action.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in very early common law sources and is effectively obsolete by the modern period. Researchers encountering it in medieval legal manuscripts, Bracton, or glossaries of Anglo-Saxon and early Norman law should treat it as a term of art from the period of fresh suit and hue and cry procedure — a legal landscape in which victims bore affirmative procedural obligations to pursue felons or risk losing their remedy. The term will not appear in modern legal indexes, digests, or case law. If you encounter it in a historical document, it signals you are working with material from the pre-common-law or very early common law period, likely before the 14th century. The Scots equivalent, sikerborgh (meaning securum plegium, or "secure pledge"), provides a useful comparative reference when researching parallel development of criminal procedure in Scottish legal history. Researchers working across the Anglo-Scottish legal border in medieval sources should note both forms.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje and Lawrence define sakabere as "he that is robbed, or by theft deprived of his money or goods, and puts in surety to prosecute the felon with fresh suits," citing Bracton, Book 3, Chapter 32, and Spelman's Glossary for the Scots cognate sikerborgh. The definition is narrow and procedural: the term does not describe every robbery victim, but specifically one who has taken the formal step of pledging surety to pursue the matter — a requirement reflecting the older English system in which private prosecution was the primary mechanism for pursuing felons, and the victim's personal commitment to the suit was a precondition for legal process.
Spelman's Glossary, referenced by Rapalje and Lawrence, is the principal historical authority for this term in English legal lexicography, and Bracton remains the primary substantive source. No meaningful divergence appears across the historical dictionaries on this term, which is unsurprising given its narrow scope and early obsolescence. What the historical sources do not address is the procedural context in any depth: the obligation of fresh suit — pursuing the felon immediately and continuously — was part of the broader hue and cry system, and the surety requirement for a sakabere was tied to that system's logic of ensuring that victims could not make accusations and then abandon them. The term effectively disappears from legal usage as Crown prosecution and formal indictment procedures displaced private victim-driven prosecution.
Note: Rapalje and Lawrence append to this entry a separate Roman law term, SACCULARII (cutpurses), without connection to sakabere. These are distinct entries sharing proximity on the page only.