Definition
In Spanish law, a loan. Specifically, something lent to a borrower at the borrower's request. The term appears in the historic Spanish legal code Las Partidas (Part 3, Title 18, Law 70) as the operative word for a consensual lending arrangement initiated by the borrower. It is the Spanish-law equivalent of the Roman law mutuum — a loan of fungible goods or money in which ownership passes to the borrower, who is obligated to return an equivalent quantity or amount.
Why It Matters in Research
EMPRESTITO surfaces primarily in historical legal materials drawn from Spanish civil law tradition, making it relevant to research involving jurisdictions that inherited the Spanish legal system — including Louisiana, Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Researchers encountering this term in early American territorial records, land grant disputes, or colonial-era instruments should treat it as a civil-law loan concept with roots in Las Partidas rather than in common-law debt doctrine.
The key navigational point: EMPRESTITO will not appear in common-law English sources, and researchers working with translated or bilingual documents from the Spanish colonial period should be alert to context — the term can describe informal personal loans, state borrowing instruments, or commercial lending depending on the era and jurisdiction. In 19th-century Latin American legal usage, empréstito also developed a specific public-finance meaning (a government bond or state loan), which is largely absent from the U.S. historical legal dictionaries but may appear in documents relating to Mexican land grants or treaty-era obligations.
Corpus researchers should also note that the term may appear in anglicized or Americanized form in territorial court records, where Spanish legal concepts were being absorbed into common-law frameworks. Cross-referencing with entries for MUTUUM, LAS PARTIDAS, and civil-law loan doctrine will typically be necessary to reconstruct the full legal context.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four historical sources consulted are in close agreement on the core definition: EMPRESTITO is a loan in Spanish law, something lent at the borrower's request. All cite Las Partidas, Part 3, Title 18, Law 70 as the authoritative source, though Black's 2nd edition cites "pt. 8" rather than "pt. 3" — a likely typographical error in the original printing, as Las Partidas Part 3 is the established locus for procedural and contract matters, while Part 8 does not exist in the seven-part code.
Bouvier adds the most useful framing, placing EMPRESTITO alongside the Latin EMPTIO and EMPTOR in a way that implicitly situates it within the broader civil-law taxonomy of consensual contracts — buying, selling, and lending. Burrill's entry is minimal, offering only the Spanish-law attribution before shifting to a separate French-law term (EMPREZ), which reflects the compressed cross-lingual format typical of that dictionary and should not be read as substantive commentary on EMPRESTITO itself.
None of the historical dictionaries address the public-finance dimension of the term — its use to describe government loans or bond instruments — which had already become common in Spanish and Latin American legal usage by the mid-19th century. Researchers should treat the dictionary definitions as accurate but incomplete for post-colonial contexts.
Jurisdictional Note
EMPRESTITO is a term of Spanish civil law and has no equivalent doctrine in the common-law tradition. Its practical significance in U.S. legal research is greatest in states that were formerly Spanish or Mexican territory, where courts and legislatures in the territorial period sometimes had to interpret Spanish-law instruments using the underlying concepts of Las Partidas.