Definition
A Roman civil law concept with two distinct meanings in the historical legal sources:
(1) Civil reputation. The formal civil standing or reputation that attached to a Roman citizen by virtue of that status. Existimatio denoted the condition of unimpeached dignity and character — dignitatis inlaesae status — regarded as the highest form of civic standing a Roman citizen could possess. It was not merely social reputation in the informal sense, but a legally cognizable status that could be diminished or lost through certain acts, judgments, or legal proceedings. Loss or degradation of existimatio (a condition called infamia) carried concrete legal consequences: exclusion from certain offices, diminished capacity to appear in legal proceedings, and reduced standing in civic life generally.
(2) Arbitral decision. In a secondary usage, existimatio also referred to the decision or award rendered by an arbiter — the formal judgment of a private adjudicator in Roman dispute resolution.
Common Confusion
The two meanings are easily conflated in historical legal texts, where the same term appears in both procedural discussions of arbitration and substantive discussions of civil status. Context is essential: existimatio in the sense of an arbitral award appears in procedural passages; existimatio as civil reputation appears in discussions of status, capacity, and the consequences of infamia. Researchers should not assume that a passage using the term without definition is necessarily referring to civic standing — check the surrounding subject matter.
Why It Matters in Research
Existimatio is a pure Roman law term. It appears in the Law Mind corpus almost exclusively in treatises and dictionaries dealing with civil law foundations, comparative law history, and the Roman law origins of modern status and capacity doctrines. Researchers will not encounter it in American case law as operative legal doctrine, but it appears with some frequency in 19th-century legal scholarship as a reference point for discussions of civil death, infamia, and the legal consequences of disqualification or disgrace.
The civil reputation meaning connects directly to the broader Roman law architecture of status: the three-part framework of status libertatis (freedom), status civitatis (citizenship), and status familiae (family position). Existimatio sits within status civitatis and functions as a qualifying condition within it — a Roman citizen had full civil standing only if existimatio was intact. This architecture is the conceptual ancestor of later common law and civil law doctrines concerning civil incapacity, attainder, and the legal consequences of conviction.
The arbitration meaning is secondary and less discussed in the historical dictionaries, but researchers working on the Roman law origins of arbitration doctrine should be aware that the same term covers both concepts. Burrill does not mention the arbitral meaning; Black's 2nd edition adds it. This divergence across the shelf sources is itself informative: the arbitral usage was not always recognized as belonging to the same headword.
For researchers using the Law Mind corpus to trace the development of reputation-based legal disabilities into Anglo-American law, existimatio is a useful conceptual entry point — but the line of transmission runs primarily through civil law jurisdictions and ecclesiastical law rather than directly through common law, where infamia and civil death took distinct doctrinal paths.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four shelf sources present the civil reputation meaning with substantial consistency. Burrill and Black's 2nd edition are the most detailed, both citing Mackeld. Civ. Law (Mackeldey's Roman Law) and the Digest (Dig. 50, 13, 5, 1) for the core definition. Both use the Latin gloss dignitatis inlaesae status and identify existimatio as the highest standing of a Roman citizen. This consistency suggests the sources are drawing from the same Roman law scholarship tradition — specifically the 19th-century German pandectist literature transmitted into English through Mackeldey.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the only source that explicitly identifies the arbitral award meaning as a distinct, numbered sub-definition, which is methodologically useful: it confirms that dual meaning was recognized by at least some 19th-century legal lexicographers rather than being an obscure variant. Black's 1st edition does not include the arbitral meaning; Black's 2nd edition adds it in passing. This evolution across editions is a minor but telling example of how successive editions of Black's incorporated material from Rapalje and other intermediate sources.
None of the historical dictionaries trace the consequences of lost existimatio in any detail, and none connect the concept explicitly to parallel common law doctrines of civil death or attainder. Researchers should not rely on these entries alone to understand the downstream doctrinal significance of the concept.
Jurisdictional Note
Existimatio as operative doctrine belongs entirely to Roman law and has no direct equivalent in American common law. Its doctrinal legacy is more visible in civil law jurisdictions (France, Spain, Louisiana) through concepts of civic degradation and legal incapacity, and in ecclesiastical law through infamia iuris. Louisiana legal scholarship occasionally references the Roman law background of civil incapacity doctrines in terms that invoke existimatio or its cognates.