Definition
An archaic Law French verb meaning "to sow," appearing in historical English legal sources in its participial form seme (also spelled semé), meaning "sown" or "scattered." The term appears in early English law reports and treatises in contexts related to property, land use, and heraldic description. Its primary legal significance is as the root of seme/semé, which described land that had been sown or, in heraldry, a field strewn with repeated charges.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A surname; also a small village and civil parish in Babergh district, Suffolk, England.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not separately defined; derived from the French verb semer, meaning to sow seeds.
The common English sense of "to sow" has no meaningful overlap with its legal usage. Researchers encountering semer in early Year Book or treatise text should recognize it as a Law French term of art whose significance lies entirely in its participial form and its appearance in property and heraldry contexts — not in agricultural discussion per se.
Common Confusion
SEMER / SEMÉ / SEMESTRIS: These three terms appear in close proximity in Burrill and in historical sources but are unrelated. Semer is the Law French verb (to sow). Semé is its participial form (sown, scattered), used in heraldic and property contexts. Semestris is a Latin term meaning "of six months," used in Roman law and English statutory contexts regarding guardianship and limitation periods. Burrill's compressed treatment risks conflating them for the unwary researcher.
Why It Matters in Research
Semer itself is rarely the operative word in historical legal sources; it functions as the headword anchoring the more frequently encountered participial form seme or semé. Researchers working in Year Books (particularly early Edward III materials, as Burrill cites) or early English common law treatises may encounter both forms. The key research trap is misreading seme as a standalone noun or confusing it with the Latin semestris (six months), which appears in the same cluster of sources and covers an entirely different legal concept — temporal limitation periods in guardianship law.
Burrill's entry conflates two distinct terms under a single compressed entry: semer (Law French, to sow) and semestris (Latin, of six months). These are etymologically and legally unrelated. Researchers scanning Burrill should be alert to this run-on structure and not treat them as connected concepts.
In heraldic law and property description, semé denotes a surface covered or scattered with a repeated pattern — a usage that migrated into formal legal description of armorial bearings and, by extension, into property records where land or goods were described as "sown" with particular features or encumbrances. This heraldic legal usage is unlikely to appear in modern practice but surfaces in historical title chains and feudal tenure records.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only substantive historical legal dictionary treatment located in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill correctly identifies semer as Law French for "to sow" and cites Britton (fol. 147b) and the Year Books (Trinity Term, 4 Edward III, p. 7) as authority. These are genuine historical sources: Britton is a late-thirteenth-century English law treatise written in Law French, and the Year Books of Edward III are among the core primary sources for fourteenth-century English common law.
Burrill's entry then pivots without clear transition to semestris — a Latin term drawn from the Digest (Dig. 27.1.41.2) and Coke's Institutes (2 Inst. 361) referring to a six-month period, notably in the context of guardianship exemptions. The Statute of Westminster reference (Stat. Westm.) likely refers to one of the Westminster statutes of the late thirteenth century.
No other historical dictionaries in the corpus treat semer independently. The entry is thin by necessity — semer as an independent legal term is principally a gateway to its participial form and the related Latin terminology, neither of which developed an elaborate independent doctrinal life in English law.