Definition
SEME has two distinct uses in historical legal sources, which are unrelated to each other.
1. (Old English records, mensuration) A horse-load; a unit of carrying measure used in medieval English records to express quantity by the load a single horse could carry. The term appears in old conveyances, customs records, and accounts where goods or agricultural produce were measured by the beast-load rather than by fixed weight or volume.
2. (Heraldry) A field or charge strewed or covered with small repeated figures — such as stars, fleurs-de-lis, or roundels — distributed across the surface without a fixed count. A field described as "semé of" a particular charge is understood to be scattered all over with that charge, the edges of the figures typically cut off by the boundary of the field, suggesting an infinite or uncountable distribution.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Anything which serves for any purpose as a substitute for an object of which it is, in some sense, a representation, sign, or symbol." [Note: This definition does not correspond to standard usage of "seme" and likely reflects a mismatch in the source data.]
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Sprinkled or sown; — said of field, or a charge, when strewed or covered with small charges."
The Webster's 1913 definition corresponds directly to the heraldic legal meaning (definition 2 above) and is the most reliable common-language anchor for the term. The Wiktionary definition supplied does not align with known uses of "seme" and should not be relied upon. The heraldic and the mensuration senses share no meaningful connection; context within the source document determines which applies.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Semé-de-lis: The specific heraldic form describing a field scattered with fleurs-de-lis, historically associated with the arms of France and appearing frequently in English royal heraldry and the arms of peers with French territorial claims.
Semé of roundels, billets, or other charges: The general pattern applies to any small repeated charge; the terminology follows the form "semé of [charge name]."
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering SEME in old records face an immediate disambiguation problem: the mensuration sense and the heraldic sense appear in entirely different document types, and conflating them produces nonsensical readings.
For the mensuration sense: The term surfaces primarily in medieval estate records, customs accounts, manorial rolls, and conveyances involving agricultural or commercial goods. Researchers working in this corpus should treat "seme" alongside other horse-load and pack-load measures (such as "seam" and "summa"), which Burrill flags as the Latin root. The connection to "summa" is important — in some Latin-language records the same concept appears as "summa" rather than the anglicized "seme," and cross-referencing both forms is necessary for complete coverage.
For the heraldic sense: Legal instruments involving coats of arms — grants, patents of nobility, letters patent, peerage descent claims, and boundary descriptions using armorial landmarks — may use heraldic vocabulary including "semé." Misreading a heraldic blazon in a legal instrument (such as a grant of arms or a settlement tied to armorial bearings) can affect identification of the parties or the subject matter. The heraldic sense is the dominant modern survival of the term.
The Wiktionary definition in the supplied source material is anomalous and does not reflect standard lexicographic entries for "seme." Researchers relying on that definition in secondary analysis would be misled; it should be treated as a source artifact, not a substantive definition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides only the mensuration sense — a horse-load, citing Cowell — and connects the term to the Latin "summa." This is consistent with Cowell's Interpreter and with medieval Latin record practice, where "summa" denoted a pack-horse load across English and Continental administrative documents.
Burrill does not address the heraldic sense at all, which is a notable gap given that heraldic terminology was well established in legal instruments by the time of his writing. Webster's 1913 fills that gap by defining the heraldic use precisely.
No single historical legal dictionary surveyed provides both senses in one place. Researchers should treat Burrill as authoritative for the mensuration sense and Webster's (or specialized heraldic dictionaries such as Brooke-Little's) as the better guide to the heraldic sense.
Jurisdictional Note
The mensuration sense is essentially confined to English and Anglo-Norman records; it has no meaningful survival in American legal practice. The heraldic sense has limited but nonzero relevance in American legal contexts involving grants, trusts, or estates tied to armorial bearings, though heraldry has no official legal status in the United States as it does in England and Scotland.