time immemorial

Time immemorial is a phrase meaning time extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition. The implication is that the subject referred to is, or can be regarded as, indefinitely ancient. The phrase is one of the few cases in the English language where the postmodifier is an adjective - some other legal terms such as attorney general and court martial follow the pattern, largely due to the influence of Norman French. Modern historians, anthropologists, and others have often criticized the use of the term as a view of contemporary conditions as without history, i.e. as essential and unchanging in nature.

The term has been formally defined for some purposes.

• In English law, time immemorial means "a time before legal history and beyond legal memory." In 1276, this time was fixed by statute as the 3 September 1189, the date of the coronation of King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart). Proof of unbroken possession or use of any right since that date made it unnecessary to establish the original grant. In 1832, the plan of dating legal memory from a fixed time was abandoned; instead, it was held that rights which had been enjoyed for twenty years (or as against the Crown thirty years) should not be impeached merely by proving that they had not been enjoyed before. ^[1]
• The Court of Chivalry is said to have defined the period before 1066 as "time immemorial" for the purposes of heraldry.^[2][3]

Similar expressions include "time out of mind" and "since the mind of man runneth not to the contrary."

See also

• Immemorial nobility

References

1. ^ The public domain Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
2. ^ History of Heraldry^{[dead link]}
3. ^ http://www.infokey.com/hall/herald.htm^{[dead link]}