Definition
CUNA carries two distinct meanings in old English legal Latin, both appearing in historical legal sources and neither connected to the other:
1. A brewing vessel. In early English legal usage, cuna referred to a tub or vat used for brewing. The term appears in Domesday Book materials in connection with the city of Chester (Cestria) and was used to describe equipment associated with brewing operations, which carried legal and fiscal significance under manorial and borough customs.
2. Coin; coinage. Cuna also appears in old English legal Latin as a term for coin, with the related form cunagium denoting the act or right of coinage. This usage appears in Coke's commentary on Littleton and in early pleading records.
Common Confusion
The two meanings of cuna are unrelated and should not be conflated. Their coexistence in Burrill reflects the reality that old English legal Latin drew on multiple Latin roots and that compilers like Burrill collected terms alphabetically without implying conceptual connection. A researcher encountering cuna in a historical document must determine from context which sense is intended — the brewing vessel sense appears in manorial and borough records, while the coin sense appears in pleading and royal prerogative materials.
There is also textual confusion within the brewing vessel meaning itself. Cowell argued that cuna in this sense was a misreading of cuva (English: keeve or keever, a large fermenting tub), while Blount defended cuna as a genuine term and noted that a brewing vessel was still called a "cump" in Cheshire in his own time. This scribal ambiguity is relevant when the term appears in Domesday-era or post-Conquest local records.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with Domesday Book transcriptions or early English borough and manorial records may encounter cuna in the brewing vessel sense as part of descriptions of local customs, renders in kind, or assessments of brewing rights. The Cowell/Blount dispute about whether cuna is authentic or a misreading of cuva means that any single occurrence in a manuscript source should be treated with caution — the reading may be a scribal or editorial error, and cross-checking against facsimile or diplomatic editions is advisable.
For the coin and coinage sense, cuna and cunagium appear in the context of royal prerogative over money. Coinage was a jealously guarded Crown right in English legal history, and cunagium (coinage) could appear in pleading records, grants, and disputes over minting privileges. Researchers tracing the legal history of monetary sovereignty or mint rights will find these terms in sources like Townshend's Pleas and Coke's commentary on Littleton.
The Wiktionary definition — referring to an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia — has no legal meaning and no connection to either historical legal usage.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary historical legal dictionary source for cuna. His entry faithfully reproduces the scholarly disagreement among earlier glossarists: Spelman identifies cuna in the brewing sense from Domesday materials; Cowell dismisses it as a misreading; Blount defends its authenticity and offers dialectal evidence from Cheshire. Burrill does not resolve the dispute but records all positions, which is the appropriate treatment for a term with uncertain manuscript provenance.
For the coin sense, Burrill cites Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 207) and Townshend's Pleas (Pl. 62, 260). These are authoritative early modern English legal sources, and the coin meaning appears to be less contested than the brewing vessel meaning.
No modern legal dictionary is expected to carry cuna as a living term. It is purely of historical and antiquarian legal interest.
Jurisdictional Note
Both meanings are specific to English legal history, primarily the medieval and early modern periods. Neither usage has any recognized counterpart in American law or other common law jurisdictions.