Definition
Latin. A term of Roman and early English legal practice meaning to appoint, constitute, establish, ordain, or undertake. The word functioned as a formal operative verb in legal instruments, carrying the legal force of appointment or creation. Its primary English-law usage appeared in ancient letters of attorney and judicial commissions, where it expressed the act of formally designating a person to act with legal authority. It has been entirely supplanted in modern practice by its English equivalent, "constitute."
Burrill identifies an extended range of meanings beyond simple appointment: constituere could also denote a statutory provision, or more broadly, any act of establishment or creation — as in constitutio dotis, the establishment or creation of dower rights. In this broader sense the word described the formal bringing-into-existence of a legal relationship or status, not merely the naming of a person to fill a role.
Common Confusion
Constituere is a Latin antecedent to, not a synonym of, the modern English legal term "constitute." Researchers encountering constituere in historical sources should resist reading it through the lens of "constitute" in contemporary usage, which carries constitutional and corporate connotations largely absent from the older Latin term. Similarly, constituere should not be confused with constitutio, the Latin noun form designating a constitution, ordinance, or imperial rescript. Where constituere is the verb of action, constitutio names the resulting instrument or legal arrangement.
Why It Matters in Research
Constituere appears almost exclusively in pre-modern sources — medieval English legal instruments, Year Books, Bracton, Fleta, and early Chancery materials — and has no living operative function in modern drafting. Researchers will encounter it chiefly in two contexts.
First, in ancient powers of attorney and commissions. Bouvier notes its use in letters of attorney translated by "constitute," and Burrill records that constituimus — the first-person plural perfect form meaning "we have constituted or appointed" — was the emphatic word in early English judicial commissions as recorded by Bracton. A researcher reading those commissions needs to recognize that constituimus carries the formal weight of the granting language, equivalent in legal effect to the modern "hereby appoint."
Second, as a structural signal in Fleta and similar compilations. Burrill identifies constituere in Fleta in at least two distinct senses: as a statutory provision (lib. 2, c. 44, § 5) and as establishment or creation (lib. 3, c. 5, § 8; and in constitutio dotis at lib. 5, c. 23). This means the same root word, depending on context, may be signaling a procedural rule, a legislative enactment, or the creation of a substantive right. Researchers working with Fleta or Bracton must track which sense is operative in a given passage.
The practical trap for corpus researchers is anachronism. Modern search tools returning constituere hits will surface materials from a narrow historical window. A result set dominated by this term signals you are in pre-modern or early modern legal literature, and the doctrinal surrounding it — dower creation, judicial appointment, agency by letter — needs to be interpreted in that frame.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources are in close agreement on the core meaning of constituere as a verb of appointment and establishment, but Burrill is the most substantively useful entry. Where Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence provide essentially identical brief glosses — defining the term as meaning "to appoint, constitute, establish, ordain, or undertake" and noting its obsolescence — Bouvier adds the reference to Reg. Orig. 172 and Du Cange, locating the term within the Registrum Omnium Brevium and the medieval Latin lexicographical tradition respectively.
Burrill goes furthest, identifying the specific procedural significance of constituimus in Bracton's account of judicial commissions (fol. 109-111), and distinguishing at least three operative senses of the root in Fleta alone: appointment, statutory provision, and establishment of a legal relationship. This granularity is absent from the other sources and is the most useful contribution of the historical shelf to a researcher's working understanding.
None of the historical sources address constituere's Roman law background in any depth, which is a gap researchers working with civilian materials will need to fill from elsewhere — Justinian's Digest and the broader glossatorial tradition give the term a richer procedural history that the English legal dictionaries do not attempt to convey.
Jurisdictional Note
Constituere is a term of historical English law derived from Roman and medieval Latin legal usage. It carries no operative force in any modern common law or civil law jurisdiction. Researchers in civilian jurisdictions tracing doctrinal lineage through Roman law sources will find the term's usage in the Corpus Juris Civilis and its glosses more directly relevant than the English authorities surveyed here.