Definition
In Roman law, *gentiles* refers to the members of a gens — a common tribe, clan, or extended kinship group defined by shared descent (real or fictive) and a common name. All members of a gens collectively constituted the *gentiles*. Membership in a gens carried legal consequences under Roman civil law, including rights of succession and guardianship when closer heirs or guardians were absent.
In English law, the term was occasionally adopted to designate persons of a particular lineage or group, though its application in English legal contexts is narrower and less doctrinally developed than in Roman law.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of *gentile* — that is, persons who are not Jewish; in some religious traditions, those outside a particular faith community.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Gentile" in common 19th-century English usage referred to a person not of the Jewish faith; in Mormon usage, any person not a member of the Latter-day Saint church.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is significant and likely to mislead. The common English word "gentile" carries exclusively religious and ethnic connotations, distinguishing non-Jews from Jews. The Roman law term *gentiles* has nothing to do with religious identity. It is a term of kinship organization, describing members of a Roman *gens* — a category defined by agnatic (patrilineal) descent and shared clan name, not by faith or ethnicity in any modern sense. A researcher encountering *gentiles* in a legal source should assess context immediately: Roman civil law usage and English religious or ordinary usage refer to entirely different concepts.
Common Confusion
Two distinct concepts travel under the same word. In ecclesiastical, biblical, and ordinary English sources, *gentiles* means non-Jews. In Roman law sources — including civilian treatises, legal history, and comparative law commentaries that reached English and American legal scholarship — *gentiles* means clan members of a *gens*. The confusion is compounded in older legal encyclopedias and treatises that drew on both Roman law and canonical sources without always flagging which meaning they intended. Researchers working in natural law, early canon law, or comparative jurisprudence sources should not assume the common English meaning applies.
Why It Matters in Research
The term appears primarily in Roman law expositions within the Law Mind corpus — in works explaining the structure of the *gens*, the nature of agnatic succession, and the hierarchy of heirs and guardians under the Twelve Tables and classical Roman civil law. When a treatise on succession or guardianship refers to *gentiles*, it is almost certainly invoking Roman law terminology, not any religious classification.
The partial entry in Black's (1st ed.) is notably incomplete — the source text breaks off mid-sentence ("In English law. A..."), suggesting the English law application was not fully captured in the available corpus. Researchers should treat the English law dimension as underrepresented and consult civilian and historical jurisprudence sources directly for fuller exposition.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is corrupted by an apparent editorial or digitization error, embedding unrelated material about obscene and seditious libels before picking up the Roman law definition. This is a known hazard in historical legal dictionary corpus research: cross-contamination of entries. The relevant Rapalje & Lawrence definition aligns with Black's: members of a *gens* or common tribe under Roman law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence agree on the core Roman law meaning: *gentiles* are the members of a *gens* or common tribe. There is no meaningful divergence on this point across the three source dictionaries. What differs is completeness — Black's 2nd edition gives the cleanest standalone definition; the 1st edition appears to have continued into English law application but the text is truncated in available sources; Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is compromised by apparent digitization error but converges on the same Roman law meaning before the interpolated material interrupts the text.
None of the historical dictionaries address the potential for confusion with the common English religious usage of *gentile/gentiles*, which a modern researcher would need to resolve independently by context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Gens; Roman Law of Succession; Agnatic Succession; Guardianship (Roman Law).