By applying translation theories and discourse analysis to the study of thirteenth-century English law, it is apparent that some of the terms used in secondary works and printed editions of primary sources are not based on the actual manuscript sources but instead modern biases (intersecting ethnicity and gender). The knock-on effect of this practice is that reference works, such as translation dictionaries, do not provide accurate references regarding these terms. Another crucial effect of the mistranslation of medieval terms is a tendency to assume continuity of the conception and role of certain offices – here, only men as ‘sheriffs’ – over a thousand years. A punctilious re-examination of primary and secondary sources reveals temporal differences (in England) and geographic similarities (with the European Continent) that have been filtered out through ‘Anglo-Saxonism’ and further evidence for medieval women with power.