In old English law. A charter or deed; an instrument written and sealed; the formal evidence of conveyances and contracts. Also any signal or token by which an estate was held. The term came to be applied, by way of eminence, to such documents as proceeded from the sovereign, granting liberties or privileges, and either where the recipient of the grant was the whole nation, as in the case of Magna Charta, or a public body, or private individual, in which case it corresponded to the modern word “charter.” In the civil law. Paper, suitable for the inscription of documents or books; hence, any instrument or writing. See Dig. 32, 52, 6; Nov. 44, 2.
