Definition
An archaic Law French term meaning drawn or withdrawn, specifically used in the context of a juror being removed or excused from service. The term describes the act of pulling a juror from the panel — whether by challenge, selection, or dismissal. Also written as "treat."
Why It Matters in Research
This term is narrow, archaic, and almost exclusively encountered in pre-modern legal records, pleading books, and treatises on jury practice. Researchers working with early English common law materials — particularly records of jury selection, challenges, and empanelment — may encounter treyt or treat as a procedural notation indicating juror withdrawal. It is not a term that survived into modern legal usage in any active form.
The principal research trap is mistaking the variant spelling "treat" for the common English word, particularly in manuscript sources where context may be ambiguous. In a jury-selection record, "treat" almost certainly signals this technical term rather than any notion of negotiation or agreement.
Cowell's Interpreter (1607) is the named source in both Black's editions, which places this term firmly in the early modern English legal lexicon. Researchers tracing jury procedure through historical English sources should expect to find this term in glossaries and abridgments of that period rather than in primary case reports.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries converge on the same minimal definition: drawn or withdrawn, as a juror. Burrill adds the note "L. Fr." (Law French), confirming the linguistic origin and situating the term within the body of Norman French terminology that persisted in English legal practice well beyond the Norman period. Black's first and second editions reproduce the definition without expansion, both citing Cowell as the authority.
No source dictionary provides examples of usage in context, discusses the procedural mechanism by which treyt occurred, or distinguishes it from related concepts such as challenge or peremptory strike. The historical record on this term is thin by design — it was a technical shorthand rather than a doctrine requiring elaboration.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: how treyt related to the formal challenge process, whether it was used interchangeably with specific types of jury challenge, or how the term functioned differently across English courts or time periods. Researchers needing that procedural depth will need to look beyond the dictionary shelf to treatises on English jury practice.