In English law. Custom; tribute ; toll; yearly rent; payment of revenue; of which there were anciently several sorts; as gavel-corn, gavel-malt, oat-gavch gavel-fodder, etc. Termes de la Ley; Cowell; Co. Litt. 142a. Gavelbred. Rent reserved in bread, corn, or provision; rent payable in kind. Cowell. Gaveloester. A certain measure of rentale. Cowell. Gavelgeld. That which yields … [Read more...]

In Saxon law. A meeting or moot; a convention; a public assemblage. These were of several sorts, such, as the witena-gemot, or meeting of the wise men; the folc-gemot, or general assembly of the people; the shirc-gemot, or county court; the burg-gemot, or borough court; the hundred-gemot, or hundred court; the hali-gemot, or court-baron; the hal-mote, a convention of citizens … [Read more...]

A method of Inflicting the death penalty on convicted criminals practised in Spain, Portugal, and some Spanish-American countries, consisting in strangulation by means of an iron collar which is mechanically tightened about the neck of the sufferer, sometimes with the variation that a sharpened screw is made to advance from the back of the apparatus and pierce the base of the … [Read more...]

An ancient and special kind of cessavit, used in Kent and London for the recovery of rent. Obsolete. The statute of gavelet is 10 Edw. II. 2 Reeve, Eng. Law, c. 12, p. 208. See Emig v. Cunningham, 62 Md. 460. … [Read more...]

An assembly. Wittena gemote, during the time of the Saxons in England, signified an assembly of wise men. The parliament. … [Read more...]