Definition
Windelesorum is the Latinized form of Windsor, the name of the English royal town in Berkshire. As it appears in legal sources, the term functions not as a substantive legal concept but as a place-name designation used in medieval Latin legal documents — most notably in the concluding clauses of Magna Carta as issued under King John. The phrase identifies Windsor as the location associated with the sealing or attestation of the charter.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term in historical documents are almost certainly working with a Latin transcription of Magna Carta or a related royal instrument from the early thirteenth century. The practical value of recognizing Windelesorum is navigational: it confirms the document's connection to the Angevin royal court and the events of 1215. Because medieval Latin legal texts routinely Latinized English place-names in ways that are now opaque, failure to recognize Windelesorum as Windsor can cause researchers to misread attestation clauses or misidentify the geographic context of a charter.
The Burrill citation — "Mag. Cart. Johan. ad fin." — points to the concluding portion of Magna Carta under John, where Windsor appears in connection with the circumstances of the charter's granting. Researchers working with facsimile transcriptions, calendared patent rolls, or close rolls from the same period may encounter similar Latinizations of English place-names and should approach them as geographic identifiers requiring translation rather than terms of art.
This term has no substantive legal doctrine attached to it. Its presence in a legal dictionary reflects the older tradition of law dictionaries serving as glossaries of Latin and Law French vocabulary encountered in primary sources, not merely as repositories of doctrinal concepts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole shelf-source entry, and it is minimal: the entry resolves the term as a reference to Windsor, cites Magna Carta under John at its conclusion ("Mag. Cart. Johan. ad fin."), and goes no further. This is consistent with Burrill's broader practice of including place-name Latinizations that a practitioner or student might encounter when reading original or transcribed medieval instruments. No doctrinal content is offered because none exists — the term's entire significance is geographic and documentary.
Historical dictionaries that lack a Latin place-name glossary function will not contain this entry, and researchers should not expect to find it in common law doctrine treatises or equity practice manuals.
Jurisdictional Note
Relevant only to English legal history. No American or Commonwealth jurisdiction attaches substantive legal meaning to this term.