Legal Definitions - mannire

Mannire (verb)

Historically, mannire was a legal term used to describe the act of formally calling an opposing party to appear in court, or more broadly, to initiate and pursue a legal case against someone.

• Imagine a dispute over land boundaries in a 13th-century English village. If one landowner believed their neighbor had encroached upon their property, they might formally mannire their neighbor, compelling them to appear before the local lord's court to resolve the disagreement.

  This example illustrates the first meaning of mannire: to summon an adverse party (the neighbor) to a legal forum (the lord's court) to address a grievance.

• In a historical context, if a town council suspected a merchant of consistently defrauding customers with false weights, they might decide to mannire a case against him. This would involve initiating the legal proceedings and actively pursuing the charges in the town's municipal court.

  Here, mannire encompasses the broader action of initiating and prosecuting a legal case (against the merchant) to seek justice or impose penalties for alleged wrongdoing.