Definition
In Roman and civil law, *consignare* means to seal or to seal up property — most commonly money — preparatory to formal deposit. The act of sealing was not merely physical security; it was a legal act that fixed identity, quantity, and condition of the thing deposited, creating a verifiable record at the moment of entrustment. A sealed bag of money (*sacculus signatus*) deposited under these conditions carried specific legal consequences regarding the depositary's obligations and the depositor's proof of loss or misappropriation.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of Roman law that enters English legal literature almost exclusively through civil law commentary and early common law treatises drawing on civilian sources. Researchers will not encounter *consignare* in standard common law pleading or case records; it surfaces in works on the law of deposit, bailment theory, and comparative treatments of contract. The term is essential for understanding how civil law concepts of deposit (*depositum*) were absorbed — or rejected — in early Anglo-American legal thought.
The sealing requirement embedded in *consignare* has a substantive research implication: under Roman law, a sealed deposit created a distinct evidentiary posture. The seal preserved proof of what was delivered and in what state. Researchers tracing the history of bailment liability, especially the distinction between general and special deposits, should track whether the sealed-deposit concept influenced the common law's development of the "specific chattel" deposit as against fungible deposits of money. The connection is debated, but the civilian vocabulary often appears in the transitional treatise literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
When working in sources that cite the *Corpus Juris Civilis* directly — as Burrill does — researchers should note that references to *Cod.* and *Dig.* are to the Codex and Digest of Justinian, respectively. Burrill's citation to *Dig.* 16.3.1.36 (the title *Depositi vel contra*) and *Cod.* 8.14.20 places *consignare* squarely within the classical law of deposit, not pledge or security. This matters because some secondary sources conflate early sealing practices with the law of pledge (*pignus*), which carried entirely different legal consequences.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is brief but precise. He defines *consignare* as "to seal; to seal up, as money in a bag, in order to be deposited," and anchors the definition to two passages from Justinian's compilation. The quotation *si pecunia in sacculo signato deposita sit* — "if money be deposited in a sealed bag" — is drawn from the title on deposit in the Digest and captures exactly the operative legal scenario: the sealing is preparatory to and constitutive of the formal deposit.
No other historical dictionary in the standard English legal shelf (Bouvier, Black, Jacob, Tomlin) appears to carry a distinct entry for *consignare* as a term of art, suggesting it remained a Latin-citation term rather than a naturalized English legal word. This limits the researcher to civilian and comparative sources when tracing usage. Burrill's entry, though compact, is reliable as a starting point precisely because it cites primary Roman law texts rather than paraphrasing intervening commentary.
What Burrill does not address — and what no brief dictionary entry could — is the doctrinal weight the sealed-bag deposit carried in Roman law regarding the depositary's duty of care and the proof rules that attached to it. Researchers needing that depth must proceed to the Digest title *Depositi vel contra* (D. 16.3) directly.
Jurisdictional Note
*Consignare* has no operative role in Anglo-American common law jurisdictions as a term of pleading or statute. It remains relevant in Louisiana, Quebec, and other mixed or civil law jurisdictions where Roman law deposit concepts retain direct doctrinal influence, and in any comparative or historical research project engaging civilian sources.