A Literal Translation of "Cestui Que Vie"

"Cestui Que Vie" Act (1666)

I have been thinking about the literal translation and the 'hidden layers' of meaning in the phrase, "Cestui Que Vie". It looks like French basically... So this needs a bit more digging given that it was 'a type of French' being used on English shores in LAW !!  Let's follow a little more research...

Hypothesis # 1:  That this phrase draws mainly on the French

From French:   c'est = this is        tu = you     que = that       vie = living/ lives

Could this little phrase mean:
"Is this you that lives?" (posed as a question) or "Is it that you are living?"
"This is you that is living" or "This is you that lives" (posed as a statement).

Is the name of this Act intimating that it actually KNOWS you are DEAD in law (a fictional entity), but that it forces you to claim that you are living.  This is one of the first things you will be asked in court:  "Is this you?"

The judge asks:

"Is this ('name') who you are?" 

We don't REALLY know what he's asking, so we say, "Yes".  From now on, we all need to say,

"NO" !!

T
That NAME is NOT who you are...
Please continue.


Hypothesis #2

Here's what Google Search turned up: The Norman Conquest and Middle English (1100-1500) ... The new overlords spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman.  Could this explain the word, 'estui' ??

1. Old French estui = prison, from estuier = to guard, from Vulgar Latin *estudire = to treat carefully, from Latin studium = study.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/etui

2. stew /stjuː/n brit - a fishpond or fishtank, an artificial oyster bed. Etymology: 14th Century: from Old French estui, from estoier to shut up, confine, ultimately from Latin studium study.
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/stew

3. Also: Synonyms = worry, suffer, be anxious, obsess, brood, fret, agonize, feel uneasy, go through the mill, be in anguish

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/stew

Hypothesis #3 - And I think, probably the most correct meaning of the phrase, but not discounting the above Hypotheses:

Cestui que /ˈsɛstwi ˈkeɪ/, also cestuy que, is a shortened version of "cestui a que use le feoffment fuit fait", literally, "The person for whose use the feoffment was made."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cestui_que

For further study:

"...In feudal England a feoffment could only be made of a fee (or "fief"), which is an estate in land, that is to say an ownership of rights over land, rather than ownership of the land itself, the only true owner of which was the monarch under his allodial title."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feoffment

"... Allodial title is related to the concept of land held "in allodium", or land ownership by occupancy and defense of the land. Historically, much of land was uninhabited and could therefore be held "in allodium".[1]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title

"... Property which was occupied and held by force against others was held in "allodium". Basically, that means "without any restriction, of any kind or nature, whatsoever". People would come across unoccupied, vacant land and would simply make it theirs. There was no one around, no one to say that they could have it, no one to grant permission, no one to sign a deed. In this regard, "might was right". If you had the property, and could defend it against others, then it was yours in "allodium". Since there was no place to register your title, it was simply acknowledged that you held allodial title. That simply meant that you had no deed.// To a certain extent, the concept of "allodial title" is just a legal fiction. It doesn't really exist in the legal system. It is simply a method of comparing it to other properties and helping to understand the differences between it and "fee simple"."
http://www.remaxwest.com/blog/p/what-is-allodial-title

It appears Cestui is Anglo-Norman - an Old French-based language. Could it be that this phrase is actually a 'word game' ??  I would not be at all surprised if it were considered a 'witty' and clever bit of repartee on the part of the law-makers... To blend the C'est (it is) with the 'estui' (prison), encapsulating their intent for humanity... which WAS undoubtedly to IMPRISON the whole person within his/ her OWN body. Very clever.

You'll remember that this was the time of William Shakespeare - the great pun-maker, whose last play 'The Tempest' (c.1625), was said to be an analogy of the turbulent social & political times. Shakespeare was heartily enjoyed by the people for his double entendre and proliferation of puns throughout his plays. Could it be that these law-makers were writing laws in a manner reflecting these social and literary preferences to be 'very clever'. "Cestui" when seen in this way, is a very witty, almost charming turn of phrase. Very clever indeed. And better still, the common person had no idea whatsoever the meaning was... as this lovely bit of C 21st contemporary poetry points out, author's name not known:


In 1665 Britain was infected with the deadly plague -
In 1666 a great fire then did rage -
But while London was burning down, yes let me repeat that; WHILE LONDON WAS BURNING DOWN -
The parliment of the day decided to hold a special sessions, where they all sat down -
For the right time had come for them to now set in motion -
There would never be a better chance, time, opportunity, amongst all that commotion -
And what they did truly amazed me, you won’t believe what they did you see…

They pasted through the “Cestui Que Vie Act” of 1666 -
Which today STILL EXISTS -
So please, have no doubt, for what this Act is all about -
Is because of the great plague and fire, now hear me:

THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHO WAS ALIVE OR DEAD – Truly.

So they passed it through first in Latin -
So the commoners couldn’t read it -
So they knew not what was happening;
Then they decided to print it in French…
As if that’s going to make any sense?!

For the only ones who could read it were the well off you see -
Who had the right bloodline or ancestry -
So, believe you me, until you tell them you are actually ALIVE, we are all DEAD!!!
Go let your brain cells now figure that out; inside your unique head.

http://www.lawfulrebellion.org/2012/09/22/legally-dead-island-cestui-que-vie-act-1666/


These guys knew what they were writing into law. The common people did NOT use Anglo-Norman in common language, NOR Latin (the language of the church) by the 1600 AD. The People used Chaucerian (actual) English in daily life by 1500 AD, and Shakespearian English by the end of the 1600 AD ... which WE still understand in our modern times.

On an 'energetic' or spiritual level:
The Judge, through his energetic ancestral line back to the Temple Bar draws that energy into the court room that ties us up as a fictional tradeable entity, nothing more than a commodity of the courts. They draw on the energy of the Bar of old, and there we are tied, whipped, beaten, disemboweled and beheaded... under that same Spirit as occurred at the Temple Bar.

In parallel: Those "officials" in the legal system have also deconstructed 'me', dehumanised, made me an unattached head to a "strawman" and tell me that "I" no longer exist.Then this gives THEM the "right" to claim all that I have including my own person. The third link here is of the greatest interest.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/étui

http://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/a-brief-history-of-the-english-language/

http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/archive/tale/print_issue3_gloss.html

I don't want to believe the extent of the EVIL that those 'law makers' knowingly committed against the uneducated masses.  And I think this is what they did !! So in using the Anglo-Norman 'estui' = a prison, with the verb contraction C'est = it is..  This certainly comes across as quite a 'sophisticated' little joke !! ... for ALL except to whom it applied.

Does the name of this law in literal translation really say, "That is a living prison' ?? - referring to the human body as "that".  I would not be at all surprised if this is a part of the meaning of this phrase...  pointing to a most clever prison, indeed  : (

In 1725, Hogarth began a number of engravings that would act as illustrations for a new edition of the seventeenth-century poet Samuel Butler's Hudibras. This was an epic poem in three parts that satirised seventeenth-century Puritans against the backdrop of the English Civil War. Burning Ye Rumps at Temple Bar is the eleventh plate of this series. The image refers to the protests against the 'rump parliament' by inhabitants of the Temple Bar area. The 'rump parliament' was originally created in December 1648, with the aim of removing those members of the Long Parliament who were in favour of a negotiation with Charles I. Thus, the term 'rump' referred to the remnants of the legitimate parliament. 

The engraving is based on an historic event in which factions of the London populace poured into the streets in protest of the reinstatement of a 'rump parliament' that followed the death of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, in 1659. Members of the mob roasted rumps of beef in the street, as they voiced their displeasure with the chant, "No More Rump." Hogarth's illustration, taking place on Butcher's Row, a street just north of the Strand that was lined with butchers' shops, is dominated by a tumultuous crowd. In the foreground, protestors carry a plum effigy of a Member of Parliament through the crowd, and layered behind are representations of members of the 'rump,' burning and hanging from the buildings, and the skyline is dotted with the heads of traitors fixed on spikes. Bonfires are scattered across the image, with rioters burning the rumps of meat that symbolised their dislike of the 'rump parliament,' and acted as an assertion of masculinity and plebeian anarchy. The bustling crowd scene is juxtaposed with the linear facades of the buildings. The rhythmic layering of these buildings ultimately leads the viewer's eye to the central landmark of the image, the arch of Temple Bar, which is apocryphal in this context, as construction did not begin on this structure until 1669. Even before the arch was erected, Temple Bar marked the barrier from the Western point of the City of London to Westminster and was representative of two different urban spaces. Traditionally, the monarch would stop at Temple Bar before entering the City to be greeted by the Lord Mayor, a ceremonial act that marked the symbolic union of monarch and city. Though the arch demarcates two contrasting spaces, these spaces are symbolically brought together through the crowd that has joined forces in protest of the 'rump parliament.' 

-Francesca Mainman

http://www.york.ac.uk/history-of-art/virtual-exhibition/26.html