Definition
An archaic Latin term appearing in old legal records, meaning relics — typically the physical remains or sacred objects associated with a saint or venerated person. The term is purely historical and carries no operative legal meaning in modern law. Its appearances are confined to medieval ecclesiastical and administrative records where relics had recognized legal and property significance, particularly in matters of church endowment, gift, and sanctuary.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering EXTUME in primary sources should understand that the term is almost certainly embedded in medieval Latin records — ecclesiastical charters, inventories of church property, or monastic documents — where relics functioned as legally cognizable objects capable of being held, transferred, or bequeathed. In that historical context, the custody and ownership of relics was a serious legal matter: they anchored sanctuary claims, supported ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and figured in disputes over church property and endowment.
The term has no living legal usage and will not appear in modern cases or statutes. Its research value is essentially paleographic and historical: a researcher working through old Latin ecclesiastical records needs to recognize it as a property descriptor, not a procedural term. Confusing it with terms of procedure or status would send research in the wrong direction entirely.
Because both source dictionaries cite Cowell — referring to John Cowell's Interpreter (1607), a glossary of legal and Latin terms — researchers tracing EXTUME should consult Cowell directly for the original gloss, and from there move into the primary ecclesiastical and manorial record sets where such terminology was in active use.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement: both define EXTUME as a Latin term from old records meaning relics, and both trace the definition to Cowell's Interpreter. Neither source elaborates beyond the bare gloss, which is itself a signal: the term had so little operative legal significance by the time these dictionaries were compiled that no further explanation was thought necessary.
The brevity of both entries is informative. It suggests EXTUME was included for completeness — to allow practitioners and scholars to decode encountered terms — rather than because it had any continuing doctrinal relevance. Neither dictionary attempts to connect the term to any legal rule, right, or procedure, which confirms its purely descriptive, archival character.
What historical dictionaries miss: neither Black's nor Burrill's contextualizes the legal significance relics held in medieval ecclesiastical law, where the physical presence of relics could determine jurisdictional claims, validate a church's right to certain privileges, or anchor the identity of a foundation. A researcher who understands only the bare gloss — "relics" — may underestimate how legally consequential the objects described by this term once were.