Drawing of two men in medieval dress on horseback embracing each other. A retinue of courtiers, one holding a cross on a staff, surround them.
1 March 2023
To allege something is to advance a claim, to assert something as fact. It is primarily found in legal contexts. The etymology is quite straightforward, coming from the medieval Latin allegare by way of the Anglo-Norman alleger. It appears in Anglo-Latin writing c.1260.
The word appears in English shortly after, in a version of the life of Thomas Becket found in the South English Legendary written c.1300:
Þo seint Thomas to Rome cam : faire he was onder-fonge;
And sumdel þe pope was anuyed : þat he hadde i-beo so longe.
Men a-coupeden him of þulke trespass: þat the bischopes tolden er,
And beden him ansuerie for is stat : and allege þare-fore þer.
Seint Thomas would op arise : Men beden him sitte a-doun,
And he bigan a-godes name : and schewede þis reason.(Then Saint Thomas came to Rome. He was well received, and the pope was somewhat annoyed that he stayed so long. Men accused him of the crime the bishops had charged earlier and bade him to answer for his state and alleged a claim there. St. Thomas arose, though they bade him sit down. He sat beside the pope and argued his case.)
Its meaning has remained largely unchanged through the centuries, probably because of its use as a legal term of art.
Sources:
Anglo-Norman Dictionary, 2007, s.v. allegger, v.
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, 2013, s.v. allegare, v. Brepols: Database of Latin Dictionaries.
Horstmann, Carl, ed. “St. Thomas of Caunterbury.” The Early South-English Legendary. Early English Text Society. London: N. Trübner, 1887, lines 1367–1372. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud 108.
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. alleggen, allegen, v.(1).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2012, allege, v.1.
Image credit: Matthew Paris (?), c. 1230. London, British Library Loan (from Getty Collection) MS 88, fol. 1v. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image as a mechanical reproduction of a public domain work.