Definition
A Latin term from Roman civil law meaning to inhabit, dwell, or reside in a place. In its strictest sense, *habitare* denoted permanent residence or established domicile, carrying a stronger and more settled connotation than mere temporary stay. The term appears in legal texts and instruments drawn from the civil law tradition wherever questions of residency, domicile, or the place of a person's fixed abode were at issue.
Common Confusion
*Habitare* was distinguished in classical civil law usage from *commorari*, which meant to stop, sojourn, or remain in a place temporarily. The distinction tracks the modern legal difference between domicile (a permanent, intended home) and mere residence or temporary presence. In practice, however, ancient sources acknowledged that *habitare* was not always used with precision and could carry the looser sense of *commorari* as well. Researchers encountering either term in civil law texts should not assume the stricter meaning was intended without context.
Why It Matters in Research
*Habitare* surfaces primarily in civil law sources — Roman law compilations, canon law texts, and early modern treatises working within the civilian tradition. Researchers should be alert to several navigational points:
First, the term rarely appears in common law sources except as a borrowed Latinity in scholarly commentary or in jurisdictions with significant civil law influence (notably Louisiana, Quebec, and Scottish law). Finding *habitare* in an English-language instrument or court record is itself a signal about the intellectual or jurisdictional context of the document.
Second, the blurring between *habitare* (permanent dwelling) and *commorari* (temporary stay) noted by Calvinus and Spiegelius is an old problem, not a modern one. Civil law jurists were aware that usage varied across texts, and no researcher should treat the distinction as airtight when reading primary sources.
Third, *habitare* connects directly to the doctrinal history of domicile. Understanding how Roman law framed the concept of fixed dwelling — and the vocabulary it employed — is useful background for tracing how domicile doctrine developed in both civil law and, later, common law systems. The corpus of Roman law texts (especially the Digest) uses *habitare* and related terms in passages that influenced centuries of commentary on where a person legally "belongs."
Fourth, in historical dictionaries and glossaries, *habitare* may appear as a headword in lexicons of Roman and medieval Latin law, and the surrounding entries (including *habitatio*, the right of habitation, and *habitans*, an inhabitant) are closely related and often cross-referenced. A search limited to *habitare* alone may miss relevant material.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives the core distinction clearly: *habitare* properly signified permanent dwelling, distinguished from the temporary sense carried by *commorari*. Burrill is careful to note, citing Calvinus (*Lexicon Juridicum*), Prateus, and Spiegelius, that the stricter meaning was the classical one but that looser usage existed. This is a useful caution. Calvinus's *Lexicon Juridicum* is itself a standard reference for Roman and early modern civil law Latin, and the chain of citation Burrill provides (Calvinus citing Prateus and Spiegelius) reflects the standard practice of the civilian glossatorial tradition — each lexicographer building on predecessors.
What Burrill does not do is connect *habitare* to the developed doctrines of domicile or to the closely related term *habitatio* (the personal servitude of habitation recognized in Roman law), which is a separate legal concept carrying its own body of rules. Researchers who find *habitare* in context should confirm whether the text is addressing residency and domicile questions or the servitude of *habitatio* — the terms are etymologically related but legally distinct.
Jurisdictional Note
The term belongs to the civil law tradition and has no independent technical life in common law jurisdictions. Its relevance to American law is largely historical and confined to Louisiana and other jurisdictions where civil law roots remain active, or to scholarly treatment of domicile doctrine's Roman origins.