DENOMINATIO - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

DENOMINATIOAuthored

The Law Mind • 693 words

Definition

In old English and civil law: denomination, description, or title — the act or principle of naming and identifying a person, office, or thing by its most significant or defining characteristic. As a term of legal art, denominatio most often appears in the maxim *denominatio est a digniore* ("denomination is from the more worthy"), which holds that when a thing or person must be named or described, the name should derive from the superior, more dignified, or more authoritative element among those present.

In practice, the principle governed questions of precedence and description in instruments, writs, and proceedings — determining, for instance, how a person holding multiple offices or titles should be formally identified, or how a transaction combining elements of different legal character should be classified.

Common Confusion

Denominatio is occasionally run together with *descriptio* in older sources, both being concerned with identification in legal instruments. The distinction is one of emphasis: *descriptio* tends to identify by particulars (physical description, location, boundaries), while *denominatio* identifies by classification, title, or status derived from the most authoritative quality. Researchers reading medieval pleading records should not treat the terms as interchangeable.

Why It Matters in Research

This is primarily a maxim-bearing term. Its practical significance in the Law Mind corpus is less as a standalone concept and more as the vehicle for the maxim *denominatio est a digniore*, which surfaces in discussions of precedence, dignity of office, corporate naming, and the characterization of mixed legal transactions.

Three research traps to watch for:

First, Burrill's entry runs denominatio directly into the entry for *denunciation* without a hard break, which can cause confusion when reading reproduced or scanned text. The two terms are unrelated.

Second, the maxim *denominatio est a digniore* is cited by Bacon (Works, iv. 261) in a context concerned with the ordering of legal dignities and precedence — a context that will feel unfamiliar to researchers trained in modern Anglo-American hierarchy. Bacon's usage draws on both the civil law tradition and English common law notions of dignity, so the maxim operates in a hybrid space.

Third, the term appears almost exclusively in historical sources. It is not in active use in modern legal drafting or pleading. Researchers encountering it in primary documents should treat it as a term of art from the civilian-influenced layer of English legal vocabulary, most common in pre-eighteenth-century sources and in contexts touching ecclesiastical courts, chancery practice, or instruments drafted with civil law conventions in mind.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill is the primary shelf source for this term. His entry is brief — barely a line of definition — but it is followed by the key maxim and the Bacon citation, which is the substantive payload. The entry does not develop the term beyond that anchor, which is consistent with denominatio's status as a term whose importance is almost entirely carried by the maxim rather than by independent doctrinal weight.

Burrill does not address how the principle interacted with English practice beyond the citation to Bacon, nor does he trace its civil law lineage in any depth. Researchers needing fuller treatment of the underlying civilian concept should look to the glossators' tradition and to Brooke and Fitzherbert for early English abridgment references to naming and description in pleadings.

The maxim itself (*denominatio est a digniore*) belongs to a family of Latin legal maxims organizing precedence and dignity in English law — a family that includes *dignior semper praefertur* and related principles. These maxims retained rhetorical and interpretive force in English legal argument well into the eighteenth century even as their doctrinal application narrowed.

Jurisdictional Note

The term and its associated maxim belong to the pre-modern common law and civilian hybrid tradition. They are not in active use in any common law jurisdiction today. Historical research touching ecclesiastical courts, Chancery, or civil-law-influenced Scottish procedure will encounter denominatio and the *digniore* maxim more frequently than research focused on common law courts.

DENOMINATIOmain

Burrill's Law Dictionary • 1867

Lat. In old English law. Denomination; description; title. Denominatio est a digniore. Denomination is from the more worthy. Bacon's Works, iv. 261. DENUNCIATION, Denounciation. [from Lat. denunciatio.] In Scotch practice. The act by which a person is declared to be a rebel, who has disobeyed the charge given on letters of horning. Bell's Dict. DENUNTIARE, Denunciare. Lat. In the civil law. To give notice or warning, Inst. 4. 6. 15. Calvin's Lex. to summon. Jurid. In old English law. To give notice; to and inanimate objects; thus, if a horse or other animal killed a person, or a cart ran over him, the horse or cart was forfeited as a deodand. So, the instrument with which a person was killed, as a sword or knife, was forfeited in the same manner. 1 Bl. Com. 301, 302. Deodands are unknown in American law, and have recently been abolished in England by statute 9 & 10 Vict. c. 62. Oliphant on Horses, Appendix. **From the phraseology of the rule in the old books, expressed by the verse, Omnia quæ movent ad mortem sunt Deo danda, (all things which move to death are deodands, Dyer, 77 b,) some have been led to confine the proper meaning of deodand to such things as caused death by their motion, or by being put in motion. Thus Spelman defines them to be all things, whether brute animals or inanimate objects, by a stroke from which the life of a man is unduly taken away, (quorum impetu vita hominis indebite tollitur); as by the kick of a horse, the goring of an ox, the falling of a beam, the motion of a carriage. In an old case, the fore-wheel of a wagon was said to "move to the death of a man." Say. 249. But movere ad mortem may also be translated "to tend or lead to death," "to occasion, or contribute to produce death;" a sense to which Spelman also alludes. Accordingly the rule always was that where death was occasioned by a fall from an object at rest, the latter was forfeited as a deodand. Britt. cc. 1, 7. Fleta, lib. 1, c.