CUM PERA ET LOCULO - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CUM PERA ET LOCULOAuthored

The Law Mind • 511 words

Definition

Latin. "With satchel and purse." A phrase from old Scots law used to describe a person — typically a traveling merchant, peddler, or itinerant trader — characterized by the implements of their trade: the bag (pera) for carrying goods and the purse (loculus) for transacting business. The phrase functioned as a shorthand description of a person's status or identity as a traveling trader, appearing in criminal trial records where the identity or occupation of a party required precise notation.

Why It Matters in Research

This term is a navigational dead end if misidentified as active doctrine. Researchers encountering cum pera et loculo in primary sources should treat it as a descriptive tag in historical records, not as a legal standard or cause of action. Its appearance in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials — a 19th-century compilation of early modern Scottish criminal proceedings — signals that any source using this phrase is engaging with pre-Union Scots law, almost certainly pre-1707 and likely earlier. Researchers working in Scottish legal history, particularly on itinerant trade, market regulation, or vagrancy-adjacent offenses, may encounter the phrase in indictments or witness descriptions where a party's occupation needed to be established. Do not expect to find the phrase in English common law sources; it belongs entirely to the Scots legal tradition and does not appear to have migrated into English or American practice. The Burrill entry is the most informative of the three source dictionaries, directing researchers to Pitcairn's Criminal Trials (Part 2, p. 47) as the primary location for contextual usage.

Historical Dictionary Support

All three source dictionaries provide essentially the same minimal entry: "with satchel and purse," identified as a phrase from old Scots law. Black's (both editions) offers nothing beyond this gloss. Burrill adds the critical research value by citing Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, giving researchers an actual primary source anchor. None of the dictionaries explain the legal function of the phrase — whether it appeared in charging language, witness descriptions, or court records — leaving the researcher to consult Pitcairn directly for context. The phrase immediately follows in Burrill's entry a transition to the entirely unrelated maxim cum duo inter se pugnantia reperiuntur in testamento, a typographical artifact of dictionary formatting that has no connection to cum pera et loculo and should not be read as related doctrine. Historical sources collectively treat this as a curiosity of old Scots practice rather than a term with operative legal significance.

Jurisdictional Note

Scots law only. No equivalent phrase appears in English common law or American legal materials. Researchers working in jurisdictions derived from English common law will not encounter this term in operative legal contexts.

CUM PERA ET LOCULOmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Lat. With satchel and purse. A phrase in old Scotch law. 1 Pitcairn's Crim. Trials, part 2, p. 47. Cum duo inter se pugnantia reperiuntur in testamento, ultimum ratum est. Where two things repugnant to each other are found in a will, the last shall stand. Co. Litt. 112 b. Shep. Touch. 451. It is an established rule in the construction of wills, that where two clauses or dispositions are totally irreconcilable, so that they cannot possibly stand together, the clause or disposition which is posterior in a local position shall prevail; it being considered that the subsequent words indicate a subsequent intention. 1 Powell on Devises, 358-360, note. 2 Atk. 372. See the contrary rule Ubi pugnantia, &c. Cum duo jura concurrunt in una persona æquum est ac si essent in duobus. When two rights meet in one person, it is the same as if they were in two. Bacon's Arg. Case of the Postnati of Scotland, Works, iv. 330. "When two rights do meet in one person, there is no confusion Cum of them, but they remain still, in the eye of the law, distinct, as if they were in several persons." Id. 337.