Definition
Vaer is an archaic Law French term meaning "to go" or, in the third-person singular form *va*, "goes." It appears in early legal texts derived from the Norman French that dominated English legal writing following the Conquest, and is encountered almost exclusively in formulaic phrases and procedural expressions drawn from that tradition.
The term carries no independent substantive legal meaning in modern law. Its significance is entirely contextual: it survives in the historical record as a functional verb within phrases describing movement, departure, or procedural progression — for example, in expressions indicating that a party "goes" to a court, "goes" to trial, or that a writ "goes forth."
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval and early modern English legal sources — Year Books, plea rolls, early common law treatises, and abridgments — will encounter Law French vocabulary routinely. Vaer and its conjugated forms (including *va*) appear in procedural formulas where the verb of motion governs the legal action described. Misreading or failing to recognize the term can obscure the procedural posture of a case or the direction of a writ.
The key research trap is treating Law French verbal forms as nouns or as terms of art with independent substantive content. Vaer is a verb; it modifies or introduces the legally operative language that follows it. Strip the verb away and look to what follows for the substantive legal action.
Researchers should also note that Law French dictionaries — including Kelham's *Dictionary of the Norman or Old French Language* (1779), which Burrill cites — are essential companions when working through Year Book materials. Burrill's own treatment of vaer is a pass-through from Kelham, meaning the depth of analysis stops at translation. For fuller philological context, Kelham is the primary source.
No meaningful evolution of this term exists across legal periods because it never carried doctrinal weight. It was always grammatical infrastructure, not legal substance.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the entirety of the available historical legal dictionary support for this term, and the entry is spare: Burrill traces vaer to the Latin *vadere* (to go), cites Kelham for the translation, and notes the third-person form *va* meaning "goes." No other major historical legal dictionaries — not Tomlin, not Bouvier, not Black's in its early editions — carry a dedicated entry for vaer, which reflects the term's purely linguistic rather than doctrinal character.
Burrill's reliance on Kelham here is appropriate. Kelham's Norman French dictionary remains the standard philological reference for this layer of legal vocabulary, and Burrill functions as a conduit rather than an independent authority on the point. Researchers who need more than translation should go directly to Kelham.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any discussion of the specific formulaic contexts in which vaer appears in practice. The term is catalogued but not situated. Year Book scholarship and medieval legal history sources will provide the contextual grounding that the dictionary tradition does not.
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