Definition
Domitae (also encountered as domitje in variant transcriptions) is a Latin adjective meaning tame or domesticated, as opposed to wild. In legal usage, the term appears principally in the phrase domitae naturae — "of a tame nature" — used to classify animals that are domesticated by habit or training and in which a person may hold absolute property. Animals of this classification (cattle, horses, dogs, domestic fowl) stand in contrast to animals ferae naturae, which are wild by nature and in which property rights are qualified or possessory only.
The distinction matters because the category of an animal at common law determined the nature and extent of an owner's property right. Ownership of a domitae naturae animal is treated as ordinary personal property: transferable, inheritable, and the subject of theft, conversion, and other property-based claims without qualification. No continued possession or control is required to preserve the owner's title.
Common Confusion
Domitae is frequently confused with mansuetae naturae. Though both describe animals that are not wild, the terms are not identical. Mansuetae naturae refers to animals tame by nature or custom — gentle creatures such as doves or sheep — while domitae naturae more broadly captures animals reduced to domestication. In practice, historical sources often use the terms interchangeably, and the distinction rarely produces a different legal outcome, but researchers encountering either term in older texts should not assume they are reading the same classification concept without verifying context.
The variant spelling domitje appearing in some transcriptions is not a distinct term — it reflects a transcription artifact or typographical irregularity in secondary sources reproducing older Latin text.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early property law, animal law, or tort history will encounter domitae naturae as a foundational classification. The term anchors the common law property framework for animals, which persisted largely intact through the nineteenth century and still informs modern statutory schemes distinguishing livestock from wildlife.
Two research traps are worth flagging. First, the term almost never appears alone. When Black's and other historical dictionaries define domitae, they are effectively defining a shorthand for domitae naturae — always trace the full phrase in primary sources. Second, Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Comm. 391, the citation given in Black's) is the standard locus classicus for this classification. If you are reading a nineteenth-century American case or treatise discussing animal property rights and encounter the term, expect a chain of authority running back through Kent's Commentaries to Blackstone rather than to independent American development.
Jurisdictional variation in the underlying doctrine became significant in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as states enacted livestock and animal cruelty statutes that modified or displaced common law classifications. The Latin terminology may still appear in older cases, but the operative legal rule in any given jurisdiction may rest on statute rather than on the common law category.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) defines domitae simply as "tame; domesticated; not wild" and ties the term directly to the category of animals in which a man may have absolute property, citing Blackstone. This entry reflects the standard treatment: the term is a classifier, not a standalone rule, and its legal significance is entirely derivative of the broader domitae naturae framework.
Historical dictionaries do not disagree on the meaning; they differ only in how much surrounding doctrine they supply. Black's is sparse here. Bouvier's Law Dictionary (various editions) provides more elaboration on the property consequences, and Blackstone himself supplies the most complete classical articulation. Researchers should not rely on the dictionary definition alone when the underlying property rule is at issue — go to Blackstone and then to jurisdiction-specific cases.
Jurisdictional Note
The domitae/ferae naturae classification is a common law inheritance shared across American jurisdictions and English law. American states generally adopted it by reception of the common law, but statutory modifications — particularly game laws, livestock codes, and exotic animal regulations — have substantially overlaid the common law framework in most jurisdictions. The Latin terminology is most reliably operative in older American decisions and in English authorities.