Definition
An obsolete term from old English law denoting a written register or roll describing the lands belonging to a particular individual, estate, or township. A terrar catalogued the parcels of land held — their extent, boundaries, tenants, and tenure conditions — serving as a foundational document for establishing and preserving title. The term is now entirely superseded by its variant spelling, terrier, which carried the same meaning into later legal usage and survives in historical land record scholarship.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An alternative form of "terrier" in the sense of an inventory or land register.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Directs the reader to the second sense of "terrier," meaning a book or roll in which the lands of private persons or corporations are described by their site, boundaries, and quantity.
The common usage here tracks the legal meaning closely, which is unusual. The risk for researchers is the reverse confusion: the dominant modern meaning of "terrier" is a breed of dog, not a land register. A researcher encountering "terrar" or "terrier" in a historical document must resist that false association entirely — the term has nothing to do with animal husbandry and everything to do with land tenure.
Common Confusion
TERRAR and TERRIER are variant spellings of the same instrument and may be treated as interchangeable in historical sources. Researchers should not assume a distinction based on spelling alone; scribal and editorial inconsistency across centuries produced both forms. The Law Mind corpus may index some sources under one spelling and not the other — searching both is essential. A further point of confusion: "terrar" should not be conflated with SURVEY or EXTENT, which are related but distinct instruments. A survey measured and mapped; an extent assessed value for feudal or crown purposes; a terrar described tenure and boundaries in a narrative or tabular register without necessarily being a formal royal proceeding.
Why It Matters in Research
Terrar appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English land law contexts — feudal tenure records, ecclesiastical estate management, and manorial administration. Researchers working with medieval or early modern English property documents will encounter the term most often in secondary sources and glossaries rather than in the original instruments themselves, where "terrarium" (the Latin form) or "terrier" is more common.
The primary research trap is spelling variation. Historical manuscripts, printed calendars of records, and antiquarian editions use terrar, terrier, terrarium, and occasionally terrar interchangeably. A keyword search on any single form will miss cognate entries. Always expand searches to include all variants.
Because Burrill is the primary dictionary source for this term in the Law Mind corpus, and Burrill himself cross-references Spelman, researchers needing the fullest treatment should consult Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum directly for original Latin usage and context. Burrill's entry is a reliable summary but thin on procedural detail about how terrars were compiled, authenticated, or used in litigation.
The terrar's practical importance lies in its evidentiary function: in disputes over metes and bounds, customary tenancies, or manorial rights, a terrar could be produced as evidence of the historical state of holdings. Understanding what a terrar was — and was not — is necessary for correctly interpreting citations to such documents in property cases, chancery proceedings, and estate litigation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only dictionary entry in the current Law Mind corpus for this term, and it is brief. Burrill identifies the instrument accurately as a "book or roll containing a description of the several lands of an individual or of a town" and supplies the Latin root terrarium and the gloss catalogus terrarum (catalogue of lands). His cross-reference to Spelman is the key citation for deeper research. Burrill also notes the variant spelling terrier and cross-references that entry, which carries the fuller treatment in his dictionary.
No competing or divergent definitions exist across the surveyed sources. Webster's 1913 and Wiktionary both defer to the terrier entry, confirming that terrar is understood as a variant form rather than a term with independent doctrinal content. The historical dictionaries are in agreement on substance; what they lack is any discussion of the instrument's procedural role or evidentiary status in court.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Terrier (Land Records)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Manorial Records
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Feudal Tenure