Definition
De bone memorie (Law French: "of good memory") is a phrase used in legal instruments and proceedings to indicate that a person — most commonly a testator — was of sound mind at the relevant time. It is the functional equivalent of the Latin phrase *compos mentis* and serves as an affirmation of mental capacity. In the context of wills, the phrase attests that the testator possessed the cognitive faculties required to make a valid testamentary disposition: understanding the nature of the act, the extent of the property, and the identity of natural objects of the testator's bounty.
In the law of executors and estate administration, the phrase also appears in a specific form of judgment rendered against an executor. When a creditor or claimant sued an executor, the court might enter judgment *de bonis testatoris* — against the goods of the testator in the executor's hands — with a secondary provision directing that if those goods were insufficient, execution could issue against the executor's own goods. Burrill records this as one of the recognized forms of judgment in actions against executors, and the phrase *de bone memorie* often appears in the surrounding pleading language establishing the testator's legal standing at the time of the testamentary act.
Common Confusion
De bone memorie is sometimes loosely conflated with *de bonis testatoris* and related executor-judgment formulas. These are distinct: *de bone memorie* speaks to the mental capacity of the testator as a fact to be affirmed; *de bonis testatoris* is a form of judgment directing execution against estate assets. The confusion arises because both phrases appear in the same procedural context — actions against executors — and early sources, including Burrill, present them in close proximity without always drawing a clean line between them.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in historical documents should treat it primarily as a capacity attestation in testamentary instruments and pleadings. Several research traps exist.
First, spelling variation is extreme. Law French transcription was never standardized, and historical records render this phrase as *de bone memorie*, *de bonne memoire*, *de bona memoria* (shifting into Latin), and numerous hybrid forms. A corpus search limited to one spelling will miss instances.
Second, the phrase carries evidentiary weight that changes over time. In early common law practice, formal recitation of *de bone memorie* in a will or pleading was a near-mandatory attestation; by the nineteenth century, such formulaic language became less universal as courts developed more flexible capacity inquiries. A researcher reading a will that lacks the phrase should not automatically infer a capacity dispute — its omission may simply reflect evolving drafting conventions.
Third, the Burrill entry signals a procedural dimension that Black's entries omit entirely. When researching actions against executors in early American or English practice, the phrase may appear not just in wills but in the surrounding pleadings as part of the formal structure of the claim. Researchers working in probate litigation records should be alert to this use.
Fourth, the citation to 2 Inst. 510 — Coke's *Institutes* — appears in all three source dictionaries and anchors the phrase in classical common law authority. Any deep research into mental capacity doctrine in the testamentary context should engage that source directly, while recognizing that Coke's treatment reflects a much earlier understanding of "sound mind" than modern testamentary capacity law employs.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning: Law French for "of good memory; of sound mind," each citing 2 Inst. 510. Black's first and second editions are nearly identical and offer only this primary meaning without elaboration.
Burrill is significantly richer and is the most useful historical source for this term. He adds the executor-judgment context and cites both 2 Archbold's Practice (148) and early New York reports (18 Johns. R. 502; 19 Id. 266), giving the phrase a procedural dimension that the Black's entries ignore. This divergence is important: researchers relying solely on Black's will see only the testamentary capacity meaning, and will miss the executor-action usage that appears in early American court records.
What all three historical sources omit: any discussion of how courts actually assessed the substantive standard behind the phrase, and no treatment of the phrase's decline as boilerplate drafting gave way to more particularized capacity recitals. Historical dictionaries treat this as a vocabulary item; the doctrine it implicates requires consulting treatises on testamentary capacity directly.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase is primarily encountered in English and early American common law materials. In American practice, testamentary capacity is now governed by state statute and common law standards that do not require this formulaic language, but the phrase remains historically significant in reading pre-nineteenth-century wills and probate pleadings from any common law jurisdiction.