Definition
A Latin term from medieval European legal sources meaning to miscarry or to bring forth an abortion. The term appears in the context of early Germanic codifications of law, particularly those governing bodily harm to pregnant women and the legal consequences of pregnancy loss — whether caused deliberately or through third-party violence.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering avortare in historical legal texts should recognize it as a term of art confined almost entirely to early medieval European law, particularly the Visigothic codes and related Germanic legal compilations. It does not carry forward into common law tradition in any meaningful way; English legal sources do not adopt this Latin form. A researcher working in Anglo-American law will not find avortare in case law or statutes.
The term's principal research value lies in comparative legal history and in studying the reception of Roman and Germanic legal concepts into early medieval codes. When Burrill cites the Leges Wisegothorum (the Visigothic Code), he is pointing to one of the foundational documentary sources for Western European legal development in the post-Roman period. Researchers working on the history of abortion law, fetal personhood, or maternal injury in early legal systems will find avortare as a marker pointing toward that Visigothic framework — not toward English or American law.
A trap in historical sources: because avortare shares a root with the modern English "abort" and the French "avorter," researchers may assume a continuous legal lineage that does not exist in the common law tradition. The civil law tradition has a somewhat closer lineage, but even there the term avortare as a technical legal word does not persist into modern civil codes — the concept survives but the vocabulary changes.
Spelman's Glossarium Archaeologicum, cited by Burrill, is the appropriate secondary source for further glossing of this term in its historical context. Researchers needing deeper engagement with the Leges Wisegothorum should seek the primary text directly, as Burrill's entry is a brief pointer, not a substantive analysis.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole entry in the Law Mind corpus for this term. The definition is spare: "to miscarry; to bring forth an abortion," with citation to the Leges Wisegothorum (Book 6, Title 3, Chapter 6) and to Spelman. Burrill offers no elaboration on the legal consequences attached to the act under Visigothic law, nor does he distinguish between voluntary and involuntary pregnancy loss, though that distinction was legally significant in the underlying source materials.
No other Law Mind shelf dictionaries address this term, which reflects how narrowly the word circulated even in historical legal literature. Its appearance in Burrill is consistent with his broader project of cataloguing Latin and law-Latin terms drawn from continental and archaic sources — terms that a nineteenth-century American or English lawyer might encounter in early treatises or historical documents but would not use in practice.
The Leges Wisegothorum, the source Burrill cites, addressed injuries to pregnant women including those causing miscarriage, with penalties calibrated to the status of the woman and the nature of the harm. That legal framework treats avortare as a consequence of injury rather than exclusively as a deliberate act, which differs from how modern law categorizes abortion-related offenses.
Jurisdictional Note
This term has no operative jurisdiction in modern common law systems. Its legal significance is confined to the historical Visigothic legal tradition and related early medieval European codes. Researchers should not expect to find it in English, American, or modern civil law sources.