| Summary: | For several years now, historical studies of specialized discourse have gained momentum, yet the
domain of French customary law remains largely unexplored. Baldinger (1951) already pointed to
the important role of customary law in the development of the French lexicon, but only few studies
have subsequently addressed this issue. By studying the Grand Coutumier de Normandie, a private
compilation of regional legal practices that once enjoyed a quasi-official status, this article aims at
closing this research gap. The study focuses on specific syntactic schemata in the text, namely
verb-noun constructions in the immediate co-text of particular legal terms. The usage, frequency
and transformations of these constructions are analyzed and compared to data from the ConDÉ
corpus to establish the extent of their institutionalization in legal discourse of the time.
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