Definition
Denarii is the plural of denarius, the Roman silver coin, and in legal usage functions as a general term for any form of pecunia numerata — ready money or coin in hand. In medieval and early English legal texts, the term was not confined to the specific Roman coin but operated as a broad designation for liquid monetary value, particularly in the context of payments, obligations, and customary dues. It appears most often in law French and Latin legal instruments, ecclesiastical records, and feudal documents describing money payments owed or rendered.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The plural of denarius, a silver coin of ancient Rome.
Historical common usage: The term does not appear in Webster's 1913 as a standalone entry, reflecting its status as a Latin term absorbed into legal and ecclesiastical writing rather than common English.
Editorial note: In ordinary historical usage, denarii simply means Roman coins. In legal texts, the word carries a broader operational meaning — any ready money or coin available for payment — and appears in compound legal phrases designating specific customary obligations. A researcher encountering denarii in a legal instrument should not assume it refers narrowly to Roman currency or to a precise monetary denomination.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Denarii de caritate. Literally "pennies of charity." In English ecclesiastical law, customary oblations — charitable offerings — made to a cathedral church at Pentecost. These were periodic payments rooted in religious custom rather than contractual obligation.
Denarii S. Petri. Commonly called Peter's Pence. An annual payment of one penny per household to the pope, rendered on the feast of St. Peter. One of the most historically significant monetary obligations in English ecclesiastical history, eventually abolished by statute during the English Reformation.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter denarii almost exclusively in medieval and early modern sources — Latin legal instruments, ecclesiastical records, feudal rolls, and law French texts — where the term functions as a placeholder for money generally rather than a reference to a specific coin. The danger in reading historical documents is treating denarii as purely numismatic when it is doing legal work: describing the form of payment owed, the readiness of funds, or the nature of an obligation.
The compound forms — denarii de caritate and denarii S. Petri — are the terms most likely to appear in English legal history research, particularly in ecclesiastical jurisdiction, church-state relations, and the history of papal authority in England. Peter's Pence carries a long and legally contested history in England, culminating in its abolition under Henry VIII. Researchers working in that period should expect denarii S. Petri to appear in statutes, papal bulls, and polemical legal literature.
Black's 2nd edition truncates the entry for denarii S. Petri mid-sentence in the available source text, which is a caution: consult the full print edition when researching this subtype, as the corpus entry may be incomplete.
Jurisdictional connection: Denarii and its compounds are essentially terms of English ecclesiastical and medieval law. They have no operative role in modern American legal writing and will not appear in modern statutory or case law contexts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's are in agreement on the core definition: denarii as a general term for pecunia numerata, ready money, with the French parallel denier noted for context. The phrase payer de ses propres deniers — to pay from one's own money — illustrates the operational legal sense: denarii here signals personal, liquid funds rather than credit, obligation, or property in kind.
Black's 2nd edition expands usefully by cataloguing the two principal compound forms, which the 1st edition omits. Neither edition provides historical depth on the abolition of Peter's Pence or the statutory treatment of denarii S. Petri, leaving a gap that researchers must fill from ecclesiastical history sources and primary legislative records.
No modern legal dictionary carries this term as a live entry, which itself signals the researcher: denarii belongs to the historical stratum of the Law Mind corpus, not to contemporary doctrine.