Definition
In French and French-derived civil law, a cedule is a written instrument executed under private signature — that is, a document signed by the parties themselves without notarization or official authentication. It is distinguished from a notarial act, which is executed before a notary public and carries formal public evidentiary weight. The cedule functions as a private written note or memorandum that can evidence an obligation, agreement, or acknowledgment between parties.
The term surfaces primarily in Louisiana jurisprudence, where French civil law tradition shaped early private law, and in historical treatments of French legal practice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A scroll, written document, or schedule.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A scroll; a writing; a schedule. [Obs.]
The common meaning is not wrong so much as it is incomplete. In everyday historical usage, cedule simply meant any written document or scroll. The legal meaning is narrower and technically precise: it identifies a specific category of written instrument — one made under private signature rather than public or notarial authority. The distinction matters because in civil law systems, the evidentiary and legal weight of an instrument can turn entirely on whether it is a cedule or a notarial act.
Why It Matters in Research
CEDULE is a term that appears almost exclusively in Louisiana legal sources and in historical treatments of French civil law. Researchers encountering it in nineteenth-century Louisiana case law should recognize it as a term of art drawn directly from French legal tradition, not a general common law category.
The critical research trap is conflating a cedule with any informal writing. In the civil law framework, the cedule is a recognized legal instrument — it has formal significance as an acte sous seing privé (act under private signature) — even though it lacks notarial authentication. Its evidentiary value in litigation was debated and litigated in Louisiana courts, making the distinction between it and a notarial act practically important in reading older Louisiana opinions.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should note that this term will not appear in common law treatises or English legal sources with any frequency. It is essentially a civil law import. Cross-referencing with Louisiana-specific materials, French law commentaries, and Pothier's treatment of obligations will yield the most useful context. Burrill's citation to Pothier's Obligations (part 4, ch. 1, art. 2) is the foundational doctrinal source for understanding how cedules operated within the broader law of contracts and proof.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical law dictionaries are in close agreement on the core meaning: a cedule is a written note or instrument under private signature in French law. Black's (both editions) and Burrill converge on this formulation. Rapalje & Lawrence add little beyond confirming the French law context and noting it is a note in writing, though their entry is unusually terse and partially garbled in the surviving text.
Black's first and second editions track each other closely, with the second edition supplying the citation to Campbell v. Nicholson, 3 La. Ann. 458, which anchors the term firmly in Louisiana appellate practice and confirms that American courts did encounter and apply this concept.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the functional relationship between cedules and notarial acts within the evidentiary hierarchy of civil law — a gap that Pothier's Obligations fills and that is essential for understanding why the distinction was legally significant.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is essentially confined to Louisiana law among American jurisdictions, reflecting Louisiana's civil law heritage. It has no recognized counterpart or usage in common law states. Researchers in other jurisdictions who encounter the term are almost certainly reading either a Louisiana source or a treatise drawing on French legal doctrine.