Definition
In Roman and civil law, a person who has been disinherited — that is, formally excluded from an inheritance by testamentary act. The term denotes the status of one who, by operation of a testator's will, has been expressly cut off from a share of the estate to which they would otherwise have been entitled, typically as a natural heir. An *exheres* was not merely overlooked or passed over in silence; the designation implies an affirmative act of exclusion.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a narrow term of Roman and civil law provenance with little direct presence in Anglo-American common law sources. Researchers encountering *exheres* will find it primarily in texts dealing with Roman inheritance law, canon law, and the civil law traditions of Louisiana, Quebec, and European jurisdictions. In the Roman law context, the distinction between a *suus heres* (natural heir) and an *exheres* was legally consequential: Roman law required that certain heirs — particularly children in the paternal line — be either expressly instituted as heirs or expressly disinherited; silence as to a *suus* could void the will or give rise to a claim under the *querela inofficiosi testamenti* (complaint of undutiful will). A researcher using Black's Law Dictionary in isolation should note that the entry, while accurate as a gloss, gives no indication of this procedural and doctrinal weight the term carries in its native Roman law context.
In Louisiana sources — where civil law inheritance doctrine persisted into American jurisprudence — the concept of forced heirship and formal disinheritance has genuine legal force, and historical Louisiana materials may use *exheres* or its French derivatives. Researchers working in Louisiana succession law, particularly pre-20th-century materials, should be alert to this.
The term is essentially absent from English equity and common law treatises. If it appears in such a source, it is likely a learned borrowing or a direct quotation from a civilian authority.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary provides the only entry among the standard shelf sources, and it is minimal: "One disinherited," with citation to Vicat and Du Cange. Both of those sources are glossaries of medieval Latin and civil law terms, confirming the term's provenance in Roman and canon law rather than English legal tradition. No additional definition is offered, and Black's makes no effort to situate the term within Roman inheritance procedure or to distinguish it from related concepts such as *heres* or *preteritus* (the heir passed over in silence, whose treatment differed from that of the expressly disinherited *exheres*). The entry is accurate but skeletal. Researchers needing substantive doctrine will need to look beyond the dictionary shelf to Justinian's Institutes or Digest, or to civilians such as Domat or Pothier for the operative legal framework.
Jurisdictional Note
The term has no operative meaning in American common law jurisdictions. It retains potential relevance in Louisiana succession law research and in comparative or historical civil law scholarship. European civil law systems with roots in Roman law recognize the underlying concept of formal disinheritance, though the Latin term itself may not appear in modern statutory texts.