Definition
A Latin word meaning "we erect." In English legal history, erigimus was one of the operative words used in a royal charter to create a corporation. When the Crown granted corporate status to a body, the charter expressed that grant through specific performative Latin terms, of which erigimus was among the recognized forms. The word functioned as a word of incorporation — its presence in the charter signaled the sovereign act of bringing the corporation into legal existence.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term will almost always find it in the context of early English corporation law and royal prerogative. Its practical relevance today is narrow: the term is not used in modern corporate formation documents and does not appear in statutory incorporation regimes. Its importance is historical and interpretive. When reading pre-modern English charters, patents of incorporation, or commentary on them — particularly Blackstone's Commentaries — understanding that erigimus, like incorporamus and fundamus, was a term of art with specific legal effect helps the researcher correctly parse the operative clauses of a charter document.
The key navigational point: sources treating the validity or construction of early English corporate charters may turn on which words of incorporation were used and whether they were sufficient. Blackstone's treatment at 1 Bl. Comm. 473 is the anchor citation across all three dictionary sources and remains the primary reference for this usage. Researchers should go there directly for the broader discussion of corporate creation by charter.
This term is unlikely to surface in American legal materials. The English royal charter mechanism did not carry over into American corporate law, which developed through state legislative incorporation statutes beginning in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. If erigimus appears in American historical materials, it will typically be in treatises or commentaries explaining English antecedents, not in operative American legal documents.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries — Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), and Burrill's — are in complete agreement. All three define erigimus as "we erect," identify it as one of the words by which a corporation may be created by the king's charter in England, and cite the same source: 1 Bl. Comm. 473. There is no divergence, no evolution between editions, and no additional context offered by any of the three beyond this core statement.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the relationship between erigimus and the other operative words of incorporation used in royal charters. Blackstone's own discussion is richer, noting that several words — including incorporamus, creo, erigo, and fundamus — could each carry the operative force of incorporation, either alone or in combination. The dictionaries isolate erigimus as a single example rather than situating it within that fuller taxonomy. Researchers should treat the dictionary entries as a pointer to Blackstone rather than a complete account of the doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
Erigimus is specific to English royal charter practice and has no operative role in any modern jurisdiction. In England and Wales, corporate formation is now governed entirely by statute. The term is relevant only to historical legal research involving pre-statutory English corporations or colonial-era charters granted by the Crown.