Definition
In Roman and civil law, *haurire* (Latin) means "to draw water." The term appears in the context of predial servitudes — specifically the right to draw water from a source located on another's land. A servitude *hauriendi aquam*, or right of *haurire*, entitled the holder to physically collect water from a well, spring, or stream on a neighbor's property for use on their own land or for personal needs. It was among the rural predial servitudes recognized in Roman law, alongside related water rights such as *aquaeductus* (the right to conduct water by channel) and *iter ad hauriendum* (the right of access to reach the water source).
Why It Matters in Research
*Haurire* is a term of art drawn from the Roman law of servitudes and surfaces almost exclusively in civil-law-influenced jurisdictions and in historical sources treating property law in the classical tradition. Researchers working in Louisiana, Quebec, or jurisdictions with Spanish or French colonial legal heritage may encounter the concept in discussions of predial servitudes on water. In common-law sources, the underlying right is more likely to appear under the heading of easements or riparian rights rather than under this Latin term.
The principal trap for researchers is conflation with related water servitude vocabulary. *Haurire* refers specifically to the act of drawing or lifting water — typically from a well or cistern — and should be distinguished from *aquaeductus*, which concerns the conveyance of water by constructed channel, and from broader riparian rights discourse. When encountered in a historical treatise or digest, it signals that the discussion is operating within a Roman-law or civil-law framework, not a common-law one.
Researchers consulting early English legal texts, particularly those influenced by Bracton or Fleta, may encounter *haurire* in contexts where the author is drawing on Roman civilian sources to explain or analogize English property doctrine. Fleta lib. 4, c. 27 — one of the two sources Burrill cites — is precisely such a text: a late-thirteenth-century English treatise that borrowed heavily from Roman and canon law. Its use of *haurire* reflects civilian learning grafted onto early English property discussion, not a direct adoption of Roman servitude doctrine into English common law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides a spare but accurate entry: "To draw (water)," with citations to Digest 8.3.3.3 and Fleta lib. 4, c. 27, § 8. The Digest citation locates the term precisely within the title *De servitutibus praediorum rusticorum* — the title governing rural predial servitudes — confirming that *haurire* functioned as a recognized servitude category in classical Roman law. Burrill offers no further elaboration, and no other major historical English legal dictionaries (Bouvier, Black's early editions) carry a dedicated entry for *haurire*, reflecting its status as a term that belongs to civilian rather than common-law vocabulary. Researchers should not expect significant variation across historical dictionaries; the term is stable in meaning and narrow in application.
Jurisdictional Note
The concept behind *haurire* survives most directly in Louisiana civil law, where predial servitudes are still governed by a civilian framework derived from Roman and French sources, and in other mixed or civilian jurisdictions. Common-law jurisdictions address the same underlying right through the law of easements and, for surface water, riparian doctrine — but without employing the Roman terminology.