Forms: 4–5 champartie, -tye, 5 chaumpartye, champertye, 5–7 champertie, 6–8 champarty, (7– petrie), 7– champerty. [Properly champarty: a deriv. of CHAMPART, the ending perh. due to some of the Latin forms, or to association with part, party.]
† 1. Division of lordship or power, partnership in power. Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Knight’s T., 1091. Thus may ye seen þat wysdom ne richesse, Beautee ne sleighte, strengthe, hardynesse, Ne may with Venus holde champartie [1 later MS. maken champartie], ffor as hir list the world than may she gye.
¶ Lydgate appears to have known the word only from Chaucer’s phrase above, which he misunderstood, and took to mean ‘to hold rivalry or contest, to hold the field against, to maintain the struggle, resist.’ Some of the 16th-c. archaists followed Lydgate in his error.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (1840), 131. Folk whiche … Dare to theyr wyfes be nat contrarye … Nor withe hem holde ne champartye. Ibid., Chron. Troy, II. xvi. They stande full assured Agayne vs all to holde chaumpartye. Ibid., Bochas, I. iii. Against the heauen to holden champartie. Ibid., I. xviii.
1532. W. Walter, Guistard & Sism. (1597), B ij. Yet mought my frailté gainst such occasions Make no champarty, nor no great defence.
2. Law. The illegal proceeding, whereby a party not naturally concerned in a suit engages to help the plaintiff or defendant to prosecute it, on condition that, if it be brought to a successful issue, he is to receive a share of the property in dispute.
a. 1329. Sc. Act 1 Robert I., xxii. § 2. Nec terram seu aliquam rem aliam capiat, ad Champarte, ad defendendum, differendum, seu prolongandum jus alterius extra formam juris.
1467. Ord. Worcester, lix. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 400. The attorners … to execute ther office … wtout mayntenaunce, or champertye.
1495. Act. 11 Hen. VII., c. 25. Preamb., Unlaufull reteynders, mayntenaunce, embrasyng, champertie and corrupcion.
1594. West, Symbol., II. § 216. Maintenance and champarty in sutes.
1602. Fulbecke, 2nd Pt. Parall., 48. There is no diversitie where a man selleth land depending a writ petitorie of the same land, or doe giue it depending the writ: for in both cases there is Champertie.
1755. Carte, Hist. Eng., IV. 86, note. Sir E. Coke, who, being in danger of a prosecution … for champarty and maintenance, being a judge.
1881. Standard, 1 Aug., 5/2. Champerty is a bargain either with the Plaintiff or Defendant to contribute towards the cost of litigation, the price being a share in the spoil.
1882. Spect., 8 April, 459/2.
b. An act or case of champerty.
1450. Paston Lett., 107, I. 145. To enquere … all … mayntenaunces, champerties, embraceries … by hem … doen.
1750. Carte, Hist. Eng., II. 452. To require, hear, and determine, of all felonies, conspiracies, champerties, breaches of peace.
c. fig. A combination for an evil purpose.
1612–5. Bp. Hall, Contempl. N. T., III. v. A combination and hellish champertie in these powers of darknesse.
1645. Milton, Reply Answ. Divorce, Wks. (1847), 221. These made the cham-party, he contributed the law, and both joined in the divinity.
1671. H. Stubbe, Reply, 21. If that the Historian had not been of the champerty, this Passage had been more plausible.
