Definition
A Latin term from old legal practice meaning "to advise," "to deliberate," or "to consider." More precisely, it carries the sense of looking into or examining a matter carefully before reaching a conclusion. The term appears almost exclusively in the phrase curia advisare vult — "the court wishes to deliberate" — which indicated that a court was reserving judgment to consider the matter further rather than ruling from the bench. In practice, the phrase signaled a pause in proceedings while the court examined the question, consulted together, or took time for reflection before issuing an opinion or judgment. The more grammatically precise form is ADVISARI (q.v.), which Burrill notes as the preferred construction.
Common Confusion
ADVISARE and ADVISARI are variant forms of the same Latin root and carry identical meaning in practice. Burrill flags advisare as the less correct form, with advisari preferred. Researchers encountering either form in old reports and records should treat them as functionally interchangeable. Neither term should be confused with the English word "advise" as used in modern legal contexts (e.g., counsel advising a client), which is a distinct concept involving professional guidance rather than judicial deliberation.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering advisare in historical legal sources will almost always find it embedded in the formula curia advisare vult, typically abbreviated as cur. adv. vult or C.A.V. This abbreviation appears with high frequency in English case reports from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries and persists in some Commonwealth jurisdictions into the modern era. Recognizing the abbreviation is essential for reading older reporters accurately — a notation of cur. adv. vult at the close of an argument entry signals that no immediate decision followed, and the judgment, if any, will appear in a later report or term.
The term is a marker of procedural posture, not substantive law. When tracing the history of a case through historical reporters, advisare (or its abbreviation) tells the researcher that proceedings were suspended at that point. The final ruling may be recorded under a different term, in a subsequent volume, or not at all if the matter settled or was abandoned.
Researchers should also note that the presence of curia advisare vult in a report does not guarantee a reasoned opinion followed. Many such notations in the older reporters represent cases that simply ended without further recorded disposition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary historical source available for this term, and his entry is concise but precise. He correctly identifies advisare as belonging to old practice Latin (distinguished from classical Latin usage), traces the French cognate aviser, and anchors the term's practical meaning in the curia advisare vult formula. His quotation from Chief Justice Holt — "Here is an advisare vult, indefinitely" (12 Mod. 269) — is a useful illustration showing the term in judicial speech, with Holt's use of "indefinitely" suggesting a court that had reserved judgment without setting a date for return.
Burrill's note that advisari is the more correct form reflects the grammatical preference for the passive infinitive construction in the full Latin phrase (curia advisari vult — "the court wishes to be advised" or "to have the matter advised upon"), as opposed to the active advisare. This is a small distinction that does not affect meaning in practice but may matter to researchers working with Latin legal texts who need to parse the grammar of original sources.
Broader historical dictionaries of law — Jacob, Tomlin, Black — treat this term primarily under CURIA ADVISARE VULT or its abbreviation rather than as a standalone entry, which reflects how rarely advisare appears outside that formula.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase curia advisare vult and its abbreviation C.A.V. originate in English common law practice and remain in use in England, Ireland, and some other common law jurisdictions. The concept's functional equivalent in American practice is a case "taken under advisement," but the Latin formula itself is rarely used in United States courts.