Definition
A Latin term from Roman law meaning "to bear," "to carry," "to conduct," or "to act." In legal usage, *gerere* denotes action or conduct without words — behavior that manifests a legal position through deed rather than declaration. The term appears most frequently in Roman-derived maxims and doctrines concerned with the assumption of legal roles or obligations through conduct, particularly in the law of inheritance and agency.
The most significant application is the phrase *pro haerede gerere* — to act as heir — which describes conduct by which a person treats estate property as their own, thereby accepting an inheritance by implication. Roman law recognized that an heir who handled estate assets as an owner, even without formal acceptance, had manifested heirship through their *gerere*. The principle is captured in the Institutes: *pro haerede gerere est pro domino gerere* — to act as heir is to act as owner. This conduct-based acceptance had legal consequences for liability as well as entitlement.
A secondary meaning encompasses general administration or management — to manage or administer affairs — which surfaces in contexts involving guardianship, agency, and public office.
Common Confusion
*Gerere* is sometimes conflated with formal acceptance or declaration of an inheritance. The Roman law distinction is precise: *gerere* operates through conduct alone, without words (*sine verbis*). A formal verbal or written acceptance is a separate act. The legal significance of *gerere* is precisely that it dispenses with formality — the behavior itself constitutes the legal act. Researchers encountering *gerere* in historical texts should resist interpreting it as synonymous with any express declaration or testamentary proceeding.
Why It Matters in Research
*Gerere* appears almost exclusively in Roman law sources, civil law commentaries, and early common law treatises drawing on Roman inheritance doctrine. Researchers will encounter it in:
— **Inheritance and succession materials**: The doctrine of *pro haerede gerere* is central to understanding how Roman law (and civil law systems derived from it) treated implied acceptance of inheritance. Common law jurisdictions generally replaced this concept with distinct statutory frameworks for estate acceptance and disclaimer, so direct equivalents in English common law are limited. Researchers moving between civil law and common law inheritance sources must account for this structural difference.
— **Agency and administration**: The broader sense of *gerere* — to manage or administer — appears in discussions of *negotiorum gestio* (management of another's affairs without authority), a Roman law concept with no precise common law twin. The connection between *gerere* and *gestio* is etymological and doctrinal; researchers in quasi-contract or unjust enrichment materials may encounter both.
— **Bracton and early English legal scholarship**: Bracton's use of Roman law vocabulary, including terms derived from *gerere*, means the term may appear in early English common law manuscripts where it carries Roman rather than English doctrinal weight. Do not assume common law consequences follow from Roman law usage in these sources.
— **Corpus Juris Civilis references**: Burrill cites the Digest (50.16.19) and the Institutes (2.19.6) directly. Researchers who need to trace the doctrine should go to those primary Roman sources. The Digest passage concerns interpretation of words used in legal contexts; the Institutes passage addresses heirship by conduct.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary English-language legal dictionary source for this term, and its entry is compact but precise. Burrill captures the essential Roman law meaning accurately: the emphasis on action without words (*sine verbis*), the *pro haerede gerere* doctrine, and the secondary sense of management or administration. The citation trail — Digest 50.16.19, Institutes 2.19.6, Calvinus's *Lexicon Juridicum*, and Bracton — reflects the standard scholarly apparatus for Roman-derived terms in nineteenth-century Anglo-American legal dictionaries.
What Burrill does not address is the term's relationship to *negotiorum gestio* or its downstream influence (and limited influence) on common law doctrine. Researchers relying solely on Burrill will have the definitional core but will need Roman law sources to understand the doctrine's full operation and civil law comparatists to trace its modern relevance.
No significant divergence exists among historical sources because the term remained consistently Roman in character and was not substantially transformed by English legal usage.
Jurisdictional Note
*Gerere* as a legal term of art is essentially confined to civil law jurisdictions and historical scholarship. In modern common law systems, the doctrines it underpins — particularly implied acceptance of inheritance and administration of another's affairs — are addressed by statute and distinct common law principles. Civil law jurisdictions in the United States (primarily Louisiana) and in European, Latin American, and mixed systems will retain closer doctrinal contact with *gerere*-derived concepts.