Definition
A Latin term from medieval legal usage meaning "to sow" — that is, to plant seed in the ground. Appears in historical legal texts in the context of agricultural duties, manorial obligations, and the calculation of seasonal time periods relevant to agrarian tenure. The related phrase tempus seminandi (time of sowing; seed-time) carried practical legal weight in defining the timing of labor services, customary duties owed by villeins and tenants, and the periods within which certain agricultural acts had to be performed under manorial custom.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially a relic of medieval agrarian law and will not appear in modern legal sources. Researchers encounter it almost exclusively in:
— Latin-language treatises and Year Book materials dealing with manorial tenure, villein services, and customary agriculture, particularly Fleta and Bracton.
— Historical disputes over the timing of customary labor obligations, where tempus seminandi defined a recognized agricultural season with legal consequences for performance of duties.
— Land tenure research involving the precise obligations attached to unfree tenures, where seasonal markers like seed-time, harvest, and hay-time were used to apportion or trigger specific services.
The primary trap for researchers is treating seminare and tempus seminandi as incidental agricultural color when they may in fact be operative legal terms defining the scope or timing of an obligation. In manorial court records and pleadings, reference to the sowing season could determine whether a tenant had or had not fulfilled a labor service, or whether a lord's demand was timely under custom.
The Fleta references (lib. 2, c. 73, §§ 2, 13) situate this term squarely within the treatise tradition's treatment of manorial management and villein obligations. Researchers working with Fleta should note that its discussion of agricultural seasons draws on practical estate management as well as legal doctrine, and the two are not always cleanly separated.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only coverage of this term in the Law Mind shelf sources, and the entry is minimal: a translation ("to sow"), the derivation from semen (seed), and the tempus seminandi phrase with its Fleta citations. No further doctrinal elaboration is offered.
The brevity is telling. By the time Burrill compiled his dictionary (mid-nineteenth century), seminare had no living legal application; its inclusion reflects Burrill's commitment to Latin terms encountered in historical sources rather than any continuing practical usage. The Fleta citations are the only guidance provided, and researchers should go directly to Fleta, lib. 2, c. 73 for context.
Historical sources generally do not flag what seminare misses: the broader system of seasonal agricultural markers in medieval English law, of which seed-time was one node alongside harvest (messis) and hay-time. A researcher relying solely on this entry would not learn that tempus seminandi was part of a larger temporal vocabulary used throughout manorial documentation.