Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning to forgive or to remit. In legal usage, condonare denotes the act of pardoning, excusing, or waiving a wrong, penalty, or obligation — particularly by a superior authority releasing an inferior from a debt, fine, or legal liability. The term appears most frequently in medieval and early modern English legal instruments, writs, and charters where the Crown or a court formally remitted a penalty or fine that had been imposed. It is the verb form from which the English legal doctrine of condonation derives.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Not a standard entry in modern English; the term is purely Latin and does not appear in contemporary lay vocabulary.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not listed as an independent entry; the related English derivative "condone" is defined as to pardon, overlook, or forgive, particularly with reference to an offense.
Editorial note: Because condonare is an untranslated Latin term retained in legal instruments rather than adopted into English vocabulary, there is no meaningful gap between common and legal meaning to navigate — the word simply has no common usage at all. Researchers encountering it should treat it as a marker of formal legal Latin requiring translation rather than interpretation.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early English legal records — particularly plea rolls, fine rolls, patent rolls, and charter materials from the medieval and early modern periods — will encounter condonare as a operative verb in instruments of royal remission. Its significance is primarily paleographic and translational: the word signals that a fine, penalty, or obligation is being formally waived, and its presence in a document changes the legal effect of that document entirely.
The Burrill excerpt ("Omnes fines qui injuste et contra legem terræ facti sunt nobiscum, omnino condonentur") is drawn from Magna Carta or closely related constitutional materials, where the phrase announces a general remission of unjust fines — a politically and legally significant act. Researchers tracing the history of royal pardon power, fine remission, or the constitutional limits on Crown revenue practices will find condonare appearing at pivotal moments.
Two navigational traps deserve attention. First, do not conflate condonare with the English doctrine of condonation as used in matrimonial law. The Latin verb is a term of royal or judicial remission; the matrimonial doctrine of condonation — forgiveness of a spouse's marital offense — borrows the same Latin root but developed as a distinct legal concept in ecclesiastical and later divorce proceedings. Second, in searching historical corpora, be alert to variant spellings and conjugated forms: condonetur (let it be remitted), condonentur (let them be remitted), condonatum (having been remitted), and condonavit (he/she remitted) all appear in original sources and index to the same underlying act.
For researchers building a chain of title or tracing whether a historical penalty was actually discharged, the presence of condonare or its conjugates in a document is dispositive — it is not merely expressive language but operative legal language effecting a release.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary historical source that captures this term in its English legal context. Burrill correctly identifies condonare as belonging to old English law, defines it as to forgive or remit, and anchors it with the Magna Carta-adjacent Latin passage concerning the general remission of unjust fines. The entry is brief, as befits a term whose primary function is translational rather than doctrinal.
What Burrill does not address — and what later historical dictionaries such as Black's largely pass over — is the procedural mechanism by which condonare was effectuated. A formal remission in Crown practice typically required an instrument under seal; the word's appearance in a recital does not alone establish that the remission was completed. Researchers should look for the full instrument rather than treating an incidental use of the term as conclusive.
No material divergence exists among historical legal dictionaries on the core meaning of the term. The relative silence of later dictionaries on condonare reflects the natural decline of untranslated Latin in legal instruments after the seventeenth century rather than any doctrinal controversy about its meaning.
Jurisdictional Note
Condonare as an operative Latin term is confined to English legal history and legal systems derived from it. Civil law jurisdictions used related Latin vocabulary but through different procedural channels. Researchers working in Scottish, Irish, or colonial American records may encounter the term where English Crown practice extended, but it does not appear as a living term in any modern common law jurisdiction.