STA

5 definitions found across Law Mind sources

STAAuthored
The Law Mind • 878 words
Definition
STA is a fragment entry appearing in historical legal dictionaries, most substantively in Burrill's Law Dictionary, where it introduces the term STALLAGE (or related stallum-derived terms) — an old Scotch law concept referring to a duty or toll paid by foreign merchants for the use of a stall or stand during a fair or market. The entry also appears to gesture toward a related historical term concerning Jewish creditors and their heirs in medieval debt instruments (likely a reference to shtar or shetar, a Hebrew-origin bond or contract form used in early English and Scottish commercial law). Because "STA" as an independent headword reflects a fragmentary archival scan rather than a complete, self-contained legal term, researchers should understand this entry as a pointer to at least two distinct underlying concepts: 1. STALLAGE / STALLUM: The toll or duty paid by foreign traders for occupying a market stall. A feature of medieval fair and market law in Scotland and England. 2. SHTAR (also shetar, starr): A bond or obligation derived from Hebrew commercial practice, used in medieval England particularly in transactions involving Jewish creditors. The shtar was a written instrument, and repositories where such instruments were kept were known as the "starrs." The fragment "nounced shtar" in the Burrill scan confirms this reading.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An abbreviation for "Santa," as in a place name or personal name prefix. Historical common usage: Not independently attested as a common English word. The gap here is complete rather than partial: "STA" in legal dictionary sources has no connection whatsoever to its common abbreviatory use. Researchers encountering this entry in historical sources should treat it as an artifact of partial alphabetical indexing or a damaged scan, not as a standalone term of art.
Common Confusion
"STA" as scanned may be mistaken for a full entry when it is the leading fragment of a longer headword. Researchers should search for STALLAGE, STALLUM, and SHTAR/SHETAR as the operative legal terms. The Burrill fragment that references a Jewish creditor ("idem Judæus") and a Hebrew instrument ("nounced shtar") belongs to the SHTAR entry, a distinct body of medieval commercial law with significant implications for the history of negotiable instruments.
Why It Matters in Research
This entry illustrates a recurring hazard in digitized legal dictionary research: OCR-processed or photographically scanned historical sources often produce truncated headwords at page boundaries or column breaks. "STA" as it appears in the corpus is almost certainly a page-break artifact introducing one or more full entries — STALLAGE, STALLAGIUM, or SHTAR — rather than an independent term. For corpus researchers: — Searches for "STA" alone will surface this fragment but miss the substantive entries it precedes. Widen searches to STALL-, STALLAGE, and SHTAR to capture the full doctrinal content. — The shtar connection is historically significant: the shetar or starr was an early form of written obligation recognized in English common law before the formal development of the bill of exchange, and its repository system (the "starrs chest" in the English Exchequer of the Jews) is a documented feature of 12th–13th century English legal administration. — Scotch fair law and stallage duties are relevant to researchers working on medieval market regulation, burgh law, or the history of commercial tolls. — The Latin phrase fragment ("tenebatur. Ita quod idem Judæus nec haredes sui nihil exigere possint") suggests a formulaic clause from a medieval debt instrument extinguishing the claims of a Jewish creditor and his heirs — a clause type associated with the Statute of the Jewry and related royal controls on Jewish lending in 13th-century England.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the more substantive content here, with a direct citation to Skene's De Verborum Significatione for the stallum/stallage definition, grounding the term in documented Scottish legal lexicography. Skene's work (16th–17th century) is a recognized authority on Scots legal terminology. Bouvier's Law Dictionary offers no independent content for this fragment in the scanned portion provided. Neither dictionary, as captured in these scans, fully develops the shtar entry visible in the Burrill fragment. Researchers needing a thorough treatment of the shtar/shetar should consult specialized histories of Jewish law in medieval England, including the work of scholars such as Maitland on the Exchequer of the Jews, rather than relying on the truncated dictionary text. The two concepts surfaced by this fragment — stallage as a market toll and shtar as a Hebrew-derived commercial instrument — share no doctrinal relationship. Their proximity in the dictionary is purely alphabetical.
Jurisdictional Note
Stallage as a formal toll category is primarily a feature of Scots and English medieval law and has no direct modern counterpart in U.S. jurisdictions. The shtar's influence on negotiable instrument law is of historical rather than operative significance in contemporary practice.
Related Terms
STALLAGE — the operative legal term for market-stall tolls STALLAGIUM — Latin form; appears in English and Scots medieval sources SHTAR / SHETAR / STARR — Hebrew-derived written obligation; medieval English commercial law BILL OF EXCHANGE — successor instrument in the history of commercial paper MARKET OVERT — related body of medieval fair and market law EXCHEQUER OF THE JEWS — English administrative context for shtar instruments FOREIGN MERCHANT — relevant status category in medieval market and toll law
STAmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
3 5128 00032 9464 U of Michigan. Kresge Bus Admin Library
STAmain
Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1870
(481) (482) stallum, a stall.] In old Scotch law. Foreign have a capacity of standing in judgment, merchants, (Sc. "creamers or forraine merchandes,") who, in the time of fair or market, pay certain duty for their stall or stand, in which they sell their merchandize. Skene de Verb. Signif. (483) tenebatur. Ita quod idem Judæus nec ha- nounced shtar,) were kept. That the redes sui nihil exigere possint de prædicto principal repository of these starrs was in Ade, nec de hæredibus suis, ratione terræ the king's Exchequer at Westminster, is de Stanmore de prædictis debitis. Which clearly shown by an ordinance of Richard may be translated thus: "This star made I. preserved by Hoveden; and the first [was made by] Hagius the son of Mager, of London, to the Lord Adam de Stratton for an acquittance of Stanmore, of all the debts in which the Lord S. de Cheyndut was bound to him. So that neither the said Jew nor his heirs can demand any thing of the said Adam or his heirs, on account of the land of Stanmore for the aforesaid debts." Reference is made both time the star-chamber is mentioned in any record, it is expressly said to have been situated near the receipt of the exchequer at Westminster. Rot. Claus. 41 Edw. III. m. 13. It may be added, in confirmation of this opinion, that the old technical title of the Rolls Office of the Chancery, (Domus Conversorum,) originated in a very similar way, it being held in a house built by Cowell and Blount, to the Plea Rolls, by King Henry III. for Jews converted to Pasch. 9 Edw. I. Rot. 4, 5, 6, where many stars, as well of grant and release, as obligatory and by way of mortgage, are pleaded and recited at large. In Selden's Titles of Honour, (p. 798, et seq.) there is a copy of a Hebrew shetar, taken from the records the Christian faith, but which, on the expulsion of the Jews by Edward III. was assigned as a place for the custody of the rolls and records of the chancery. Cowell, voc. Rolls. The law Latin and law French titles of this court are of no value in an ing of starr or star was forgotten. of the exchequer. By an ordinance of etymological point of view, as they seem Richard I. preserved by Hoveden, these to have become established at a comparaJewish starrs were commanded to be entively modern date, when the true meanrolled and deposited in chests under three keys, in certain places; one, and the most considerable of which, was in the king's exchequer at Westminster. 4 Bl. Com. 266, note. See Arca chirographica Judæorum. (484) In a recent case in the New-York Court certain condition, (qui statutam et destinatam in tempus vel conditionem libertatem habet.) Dig. 40. 7.
Staname
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Abbreviation of Santa.
stanoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
Abbreviation of station.

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