Definition
Aurum is the Latin word for gold, appearing in English legal texts and documents drawn from Roman civil law and medieval English law. It surfaces in two distinct legal contexts:
1. Civil law usage. In Roman and civil law sources, aurum denotes gold as a commodity or material substance, relevant to questions of legacy, bequest, and the classification of property. The Digest addresses aurum in the context of what passes under a testamentary gift of "gold" or "golden things," making precise definition legally significant.
2. English law compound: Aurum Reginae. In old English law, aurum appears most prominently as the root of aurum reginae — Queen's gold — a royal prerogative revenue. See the dedicated entry for AURUM REGINAE / QUEEN'S GOLD.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Gold, used in the names of various chemical and pharmaceutical substances; also, a sweet orange-flavored Italian liqueur.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Gold. Appears in compound scientific terms including aurum fulminans (fulminating gold) and aurum mosaicum (mosaic gold, a tin sulfide compound).
The gap between common and legal usage here is not one of meaning but of register and precision. In legal sources, aurum is not a colloquial word for gold but a term of art embedded in civil law classification systems and royal prerogative doctrine. When a Roman jurist or English court document used aurum, the question was not merely what the substance is, but which legal category it occupies — whether, for example, a bequest of aurum included wrought gold objects, gold coin, or gold in ore form. That classificatory precision is invisible in ordinary usage.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering aurum in primary sources face two distinct problems depending on the era and jurisdiction of the document.
In civil law texts and their English adaptations, aurum triggers classification questions under Roman property and succession law. The relevant Digest passages (Book 34, Title 2) address what objects fall within a legacy of "aurum" versus "argentum" (silver) or other metals. A researcher working on early modern English chancery or ecclesiastical court records that borrow civil law vocabulary needs to recognize that aurum in a legacy dispute is not a simple synonym for "gold" but a category with contested edges.
In medieval English administrative records, aurum almost always signals the aurum reginae compound and connects to royal finance. Researchers in Exchequer records, pipe rolls, or early parliamentary material should treat a bare reference to aurum in a fiscal context as likely shorthand for this prerogative payment rather than a generic reference to the metal.
The Latin form also serves as a pointer to document authenticity and dating. Vernacular legal records increasingly displaced Latin after the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730 required English in English courts. A document using aurum in a purely Latin legal sense is more likely pre-eighteenth century English or a civil law jurisdiction document.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary treats aurum briefly, providing the civil law definition (gold) with Digest references, then pivoting immediately to aurum reginae as the legally operative compound. This is the correct priority: aurum standing alone has minimal independent legal doctrine attached to it; its legal significance is almost entirely as a building block of compound terms or as a classification category in civil law succession disputes.
Burrill does not discuss the classification problem raised in the Digest — the question of which objects fall within a legacy of aurum — which is the more practically significant issue for researchers using his dictionary to navigate civil law sources. The Digest passages he cites (34.2; 34.2.19; 34.2.27; 34.2.82) reward direct consultation for researchers working on legacy classification questions.
Historical legal dictionaries generally treat aurum as a pass-through entry, directing readers to the compound terms. This is appropriate for common law research but insufficient for civil law research, where the classification doctrine has independent substance.
Jurisdictional Note
In common law jurisdictions, aurum functions almost exclusively as a historical Latin term pointing toward aurum reginae and royal prerogative doctrine. In civil law jurisdictions and in scholarship on Roman law, aurum retains classificatory significance in the law of succession and property. Researchers should not transpose the narrow English-law treatment of aurum onto civil law sources.