Definition
In old English and Law French legal usage, *temps* means "time" or "times." The term appears in medieval English legal texts as a borrowing from French and was used in compound phrases to mark specific temporal conditions relevant to legal proceedings.
Two phrases survive with distinct procedural significance:
1. TEMPS DESCOVENABLES — Literally "unfit times" or "unsuitable seasons." In old English practice, certain periods were designated as non-juridical: times during which courts did not sit and legal process could not run. These included feast days, harvest periods, and other recognized breaks in the legal calendar. Proceedings taken during temps descovenables were irregular or void.
2. PAR TEMPS — Literally "in time" or "by time." Used in the sense of "presently" or "shortly," indicating imminence or short temporal proximity in pleading or narrative contexts.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of "temp" — informal for temporary workers or temporary employees.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Time." Marked as obsolete. The 1913 entry cites Chaucer, confirming the word survived into Middle English literary use but had already fallen from ordinary use by the early modern period.
Editorial note: The modern common meaning (temporary workers) is a completely unrelated word — a twentieth-century clipping of "temporary." A researcher encountering *temps* in a legal manuscript or early treatise should not allow the modern association to color the reading. The legal term is temporal, not employment-related.
Common Confusion
*Temps* is occasionally confused with *tempus* (Latin, also meaning "time") in transcriptions of medieval legal texts, which mixed Latin and Law French fluidly. The two words are cognate and functionally equivalent in most contexts, but *temps* signals a Law French register while *tempus* signals a Latin one. Recognizing the register helps date a source and identify which procedural tradition it draws from. Neither should be confused with the modern English "temp."
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval Year Books, early plea rolls, or treatises like Britton will encounter *temps* and its compounds. The key navigational points:
**Temps descovenables and statutes of limitations.** Burrill's entry links *temps descovenables* to the plea of the statute of limitations — a connection that matters for understanding how limitation periods were calculated in early English practice. Non-juridical seasons were not simply holidays; they had procedural consequences for when time ran against a party. A researcher tracing the history of limitations doctrine needs to account for these interruptions when reading early case materials.
**Compound phrases are the functional unit.** *Temps* standing alone is rarely informative. Its meaning in context is almost always carried by the compound. When transcribing or indexing early texts, flag the full phrase rather than the word in isolation.
**Cross-register fluency.** Because Law French and Latin operated side by side in English legal writing, a concept expressed as *temps* in one document may appear as *tempus* in another document covering the same proceeding. Searching only one form will produce incomplete results.
**The Britton reference.** Burrill cites Britton, chapter 52, for temps descovenables. Britton (compiled circa 1290s) is an authoritative early source on English common law procedure and is available in Law Mind's historical corpus. Researchers working on court calendar history, term structure, or the origins of limitations doctrine should consult it directly.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the only historical law dictionary in the Law Mind corpus to treat this term substantively, and his entry is sparse. He provides the two compound phrases, the Britton citation for temps descovenables, and a citation to Kelham for par temps — then pivots mid-entry into a discussion of *telum* (weapon), which appears to be a typographic bleed from an adjacent entry. Researchers should not read the *telum* passage as connected to *temps*.
Kelham's Dictionary of the Norman and Old French Language (cited by Burrill) is the specialist source for Law French vocabulary and would be the natural complement for anyone researching this term further. Webster's 1913 confirms that by the nineteenth century, *temps* as "time" had become a fully obsolete English form.
No other standard historical law dictionaries (Black's, Bouvier's, Tomlin's) treat this term, reflecting its status as a specialized relic of early medieval practice rather than a term with continuing common law currency.
Jurisdictional Note
*Temps* and its compounds are exclusively a feature of old English legal practice. The concept of non-juridical seasons has analogs in civil law systems (derived from the Roman calendar of *dies fasti* and *nefasti*), but the term itself has no relevance in American or modern Commonwealth legal research except as a historical artifact.