Avowry

Quick meaning: Avowry is a noun meaning (law) The act of avowing and justifying in one's own right the distraining of goods.

Meaning

(law) The act of avowing and justifying in one's own right the distraining of goods.

More Meanings

1. (ecclesiastical) Advowson, the right to appoint to a benefice or office.
2. (obsolete) Avowal (open affirmation or admission).
3. (obsolete) A protector, especially a patron saint.
4. (historical) A form of medieval patronage in which colonial tenants, often from criminal backgrounds, were guaranteed protection by an English lord in exchange for the payment of a tax.

Example Sentences

Further, outside such a settled neighbourhood as Dublin there was also a system of ‘avowries’, rather like that in Wales and Chester: Irishmen paid English lords small sums to be under their protection.

Every avowant, and other person, that makes avowry or conusance, or justifies as baily, in replevin or second deliverance, for rent, custom or service, if the plaintiff be barred, shall recover damages and costs.

The system of “avowries”, probably intended originally as a means first and foremost of colonizing a sparsely-populated land, created “a useful military reserve” composed in part at least of hardened criminals; […]

It would not be accurate to assume that the whole of the income from the avowries represented sums of 4d., though that seems to have been the standard annual payment, for there were, we know, other fees and income arising from avowry.

Word Forms

• avowries

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include advowry, avowance, avouchment, averral, avowal, averment.

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