ABOLERE

Definition

In Roman and old English law, to obliterate or efface. The term appears in civil law contexts to denote the physical act of erasing, striking out, or canceling a written instrument or entry so as to render it void or unreadable. The past participial form, *abolitum*, carries the sense of something already obliterated — destroyed as a legal record or instrument. The term is closely related to the broader concept of abolition in Roman law, where it could refer to cancellation of an accusation, remission of a penalty, or suppression of a legal proceeding, but in the specific usage Burrill records, the operative meaning is the physical or legal annihilation of a written text.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering *abolere* in Latin legal texts, particularly in the Corpus Juris Civilis or early English Year Books, should distinguish between its narrow documentary sense (physical obliteration of a writing) and its broader procedural sense (cancellation of a charge or proceeding). The two meanings can appear in close proximity in the same source tradition, and conflating them distorts the legal significance of the passage under examination. The Burrill entry is fragmentary — the text runs into a separate entry on abjuration of the realm, suggesting a transcription artifact in that edition. Researchers relying on Burrill for *abolere* should treat the entry as an index pointer to the primary source cited (Cod. 6. 33. 3) rather than a complete definition. The Justinianic Code reference is the controlling authority and should be consulted directly when the precise civil law meaning is at issue. For researchers working in early English legal history, *abolere* and its derivatives surface in contexts involving the cancellation of records, the striking of names from court rolls, and the erasure of entries in plea rolls. These physical acts had real procedural consequences — an obliterated entry could affect the enforceability of a judgment or the availability of a plea. Understanding the term as a term of art, not merely descriptive Latin, is essential to reading those records correctly. The term also has relevance in ecclesiastical law and canon law sources, where *abolitio* (the noun form) describes the suppression of a cause or the pardoning of an offense before judgment. Researchers moving between civil, common law, and ecclesiastical sources in the medieval period will encounter the family of terms across all three traditions, sometimes with subtly different operative meanings.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill is the primary historical dictionary source here, and his entry is brief to the point of incompleteness, apparently corrupted in transmission by the intrusion of material from the adjacent *abjuration* entry. What Burrill does usefully record is the core civil law meaning — obliteration — and anchors it to the Justinianic Code at 6. 33. 3, which concerns the cancellation of testamentary instruments. That is a precise and reliable anchor: the passage in the Code deals with the formal requirements for revoking a will by physical destruction or erasure of the document, making *abolere* a term with direct testamentary significance in Roman law. Historical dictionaries generally do not treat *abolere* as a term with independent English common law standing. Its appearance in old English legal literature is derivative of civil law learning, carried through Bracton and the civilians who influenced early English legal scholarship. Researchers should not expect to find the term as a live term of art in common law pleading.

Jurisdictional Note

As a Latin civil law term, *abolere* has no operative jurisdiction in modern Anglo-American law. Its significance is entirely historical and arises in the interpretation of Roman law sources, medieval English legal texts influenced by civil law, and ecclesiastical records.

Related Terms