Your Free Online Legal Dictionary • Featuring Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

Category: B

BIRRETUM, BIRRETUS

A cap or coif used formerly in England by judges and serjeants at law. Spelman.

BLACK CODE

A name given collectively to the body of laws, statutes, and rules in force in various southern states prior to 1805, which regulated the institution of slavery, and particularly those forbidding their

BLASPHEMY

In English law. Blasphemy is the offense of speaking matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, the Bible, or the Book of Common Prayer, intended to wound the feelings of mankind or to

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

Under the system obtaining in some of the northern states, this name is given to an organized committee, or body of officials, composed of delegates from the several townships in a county,

BODY OF AN INSTRUMENT

The main and operative part; the substantive provisions, as distinguished from the recitals, title, jurat, etc.

BONA GRATIA

In the Roman law. By mutual consent; voluntarily. A term applied to a species of divorce where the parties separated by mutual consent; or where the parties renounced their marital engagements without

BONI HOMINES

In old European law. Good men; a name given in early European Jurisprudence to the tenants of the lord, who judged each other in the lord’s courts. 3 Bl. Comm. 349.

BOOK DEBT

In Pennsylvania practice. The act of 2Sth March. 1895.

BOROUGH FUND

In English law. The revenues of a municipal borough derived from the rents and produce of the land, houses, and stocks belonging to the borough in its corporate capacity, and supplemented where

BOUGHT AND SOLD NOTES

When a broker is employed to buy and sell goods, he is accustomed to give to the buyer a note of the sale, commonly called a “sold note,” and to the seller

B O W Y E R S

Manufacturers of tiows and shafts. An ancient company of the city of London.

BREACH OF PRISON

The offense of actually and forcibly breaking a prison or gaol, with intent to escape. 4 Chit. Bl. 130, notes; 4 Steph. Comm. 255. The escape from custody of a person lawfully

BREVE L LAT

A writ. An original writ. A writ or precept of the king issuing out of his courts. A writ by which a person is summoned or attached to answer an action, complaint,

BREVIA FORMATA

Certain writs of approved and established form which were granted of course in actions to which they were applicable, and which could not be changed but by consent of the great council

BRIDLE ROAD

In the location of a private way laid out by the selectmen, and accepted by the town, a description of it as a “bridle road” does not confine the right of way

BROKEN STOWAGE

In maritime law. That space in a ship which is not filled by her cargo.

BURGAGE

A name anciently given to a dwelling-house in a borough town. Blount

BURIAL

Sepulture; the act of interring dead human bodies. See Lay v. State, 12 Ind. App. 362, 39 N. E. 768; In re Reformed, etc.. Church, 7 How. Prac. (N. Y.) 476; Cemetery

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