Definition
De latere is a Latin phrase meaning "from the side" or "on the side." In legal usage it describes a collateral relationship — that is, a relationship running sideways through a common ancestor rather than in a direct ascending or descending line. It characterizes persons who are neither ancestors nor descendants of one another but who share common lineage through a third party. The term appears most frequently in civil law and canon law contexts dealing with succession, inheritance, and kinship computation, and it survives in common law sources primarily as a classificatory term distinguishing collateral heirs from lineal heirs.
Common Language
No meaningful gap between common and legal usage exists here. "De latere" is Latin technical vocabulary with no distinct life in ordinary English. The COMMON LANGUAGE section is therefore omitted.
Common Confusion
De latere is sometimes encountered alongside de linea recta (the direct or lineal line) and per stirpes / per capita succession rules, and researchers unfamiliar with civil law kinship terminology may conflate these concepts. De linea recta describes the vertical relationship between ancestors and descendants; de latere describes the horizontal, collateral relationship. The distinction matters in succession contexts because different rules historically governed the passage of property to lineal versus collateral heirs — including different degrees of preference, tax treatment, and the operation of the half-blood rule.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in probate, succession, ecclesiastical law, or early American and colonial inheritance disputes will encounter de latere as a shorthand classification for collateral heirs. Its significance lies almost entirely in the framework it belongs to, not in any elaborate doctrine of its own.
Several navigational points matter:
First, the term operates as civil law taxonomy imported into common law treatises. When you see de latere in an English or American source, it is almost always borrowed from Roman or canon law classification, and the surrounding context will usually draw a contrast with lineal descent. Tracking that contrast is the research payoff.
Second, in historical ecclesiastical sources and canon law commentaries — particularly those dealing with prohibited degrees of marriage — de latere marks collateral relationships subject to different rules than lineal ones. A researcher mapping out prohibited degrees of consanguinity needs to understand which line is being discussed.
Third, in early American succession statutes and English statutes of distribution, collateral heirs were treated differently from lineal heirs in priority, share, and sometimes in the operation of the rule of primogeniture. The phrase de latere (or its English translation "on the collateral side") may appear in annotations, pleadings, or treatise commentary explaining why a particular heir was or was not entitled to take.
Fourth, the Justinianic source cited in the historical dictionaries — Cod. 5.5.6 — is a provision of the Corpus Juris Civilis dealing with marriage and consanguinity. Knowing this anchors the term firmly in Roman private law and signals that any authority citing de latere in a common law context is drawing on the civil law tradition. That has implications for how much weight the classification carries and how it was received in equity versus common law courts.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries — Black's (1st and 2nd editions), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill — are in exact agreement: "from the side; on the side; collaterally; of collaterals," uniformly citing Cod. 5.5.6. The unanimity is itself informative: this is settled vocabulary, not a contested term. There is no recorded divergence in meaning across the historical sources.
What the historical dictionaries do not supply is context for how the term was deployed in practice. They treat it as a definitional entry — a translation gloss — rather than as a doctrinal term requiring explanation. Researchers who want to understand how de latere functioned in actual succession disputes or ecclesiastical proceedings will need to move beyond the dictionary shelf to civil law treatises (Bracton, Coke on Littleton, Blackstone's Commentaries Book II) and canon law commentaries. The dictionaries are adequate starting points but thin as ending points.
Jurisdictional Note
The term is not a creature of any single American jurisdiction. It derives from Roman and canon law and appears in treatise literature and equity practice across common law jurisdictions generally. Where American statutes of distribution codified collateral succession rules, the underlying Latin terminology receded, but the substantive distinction between lineal and collateral heirs it encodes remains operative everywhere.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia: Paternity — De Facto Parent and Psychological Parent Doctrines (family_113) — relevant for researchers tracing kinship classification frameworks.
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia: Lateral and Subjacent Support — Natural Right, Liability for Excavation (property_147) — incidental relevance only; the "lateral" connection is terminological, not doctrinal.