Definition
In old English law, to measure by the ulna or ell; specifically, the act of measuring cloth using the standard linear measure of the ell. The term appears in legal and municipal contexts governing the competency of a burgess's son to conduct trade, where the ability to measure cloth (ulnare) was one of the practical skills used to determine whether a minor had reached sufficient maturity to manage his father's business affairs.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): One of the carpal bones, situated at the distal end of the ulna.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One of the bones or cartilages of the carpus, which articulates with the ulna and corresponds to the cuneiform in man.
The common meaning — both historical and modern — is anatomical, referring to a bone in the wrist. The legal meaning is entirely distinct: a verb (or verbal noun) derived from ulna as a unit of measurement, meaning the act of measuring cloth by the ell. A researcher encountering ulnare in a legal or municipal source should not expect any anatomical meaning; the term belongs to the vocabulary of weights, measures, and trade competency, not medicine or anatomy.
Common Confusion
Ulnare is easily confused with ulna in its anatomical sense (the forearm bone from which the ell measure was historically derived) and with alnage or aulnage, the related administrative and fiscal term for the official measurement and inspection of cloth. These are related concepts but distinct: ulnare describes the act of measuring, while alnage refers to the institutional system of cloth inspection and the duties or fees associated with it. The shared Latin root (ulna) can cause researchers to conflate these terms in historical sources.
Why It Matters in Research
Ulnare is a narrow term appearing almost exclusively in old English municipal and customary law, particularly in passages defining the age of majority or legal competency for the sons of burgesses. Its significance is not as a standalone legal doctrine but as a marker within a recognized formula: the capacity to count money, measure cloth, and manage paternal trade was the practical test of mercantile majority in borough custom.
Researchers working in borough records, custumals, or medieval municipal law should watch for ulnare as part of this competency formula rather than as an independent legal concept. The term will rarely appear outside this narrow context. Because its root overlaps with anatomical terminology, researchers using keyword searches in mixed Latin corpora risk false positives from medical or scientific texts.
The connection to alnage and the broader regulatory system of cloth measurement is important for research into medieval trade law: ulnare describes a skill, while alnage describes an office and a revenue mechanism. Both feed into the same historical industry but belong to different bodies of law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source preserving this term in the legal context. Burrill supplies the defining Latin passage from borough custom — establishing that a burgess's son reaches legal majority when he can count money correctly, measure cloth (ulnare), and manage similar paternal business. Burrill correctly situates ulnare as a verb derived from ulna in its measurement sense, not its anatomical sense.
Historical dictionaries covering weights and measures law, or the specialized vocabulary of borough custom, would be the most productive shelf neighbors for this term. Standard common law dictionaries that do not address municipal or customary law may omit it entirely, which is consistent with its narrow functional role. No significant divergence exists among sources on this term's meaning; the scarcity of coverage reflects the term's specificity rather than any controversy.
Jurisdictional Note
Ulnare appears in the context of English borough custom and is not a term with known equivalent usage in Scots law, continental legal systems, or American law. Researchers working outside English medieval and early modern municipal sources are unlikely to encounter it.