Definition
A Latin adverb meaning "hereafter" or "in the future." Used in legal instruments and pleadings to indicate prospective application — that a rule, obligation, restriction, or condition is to operate going forward from the point of reference, rather than retrospectively. Encountered primarily in medieval and early modern Latin legal texts, writs, and formal instruments where temporal scope required precise expression.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with pre-modern English legal records, particularly plea rolls, writs, and conveyancing instruments drafted in Law Latin, will encounter *imposterum* as a temporal marker. Its significance is interpretive: when construing an old instrument or pleading, the presence of *imposterum* signals that the drafter intended prospective rather than retroactive effect. Misreading or overlooking this word can produce a fundamental error in understanding the scope of an obligation or prohibition.
The term is not in active use in modern legal drafting. Contemporary instruments accomplish the same function with English phrases such as "hereafter," "from this date forward," or "prospectively." Researchers should treat *imposterum* as a terminus technicus of Law Latin drafting rather than as a term of art carrying independent legal doctrine.
Because Burrill cites Townshend's *Treatise on Pleading* as authority, the term's most likely context in the corpus is procedural pleading texts and precedent books rather than substantive law treatises. Researchers tracing the history of pleading forms should note that temporal adverbs like *imposterum* were frequently inserted as formal words of art whose omission could affect the validity of a pleading under strict common law pleading rules.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides a terse entry: "L. Lat. Hereafter. Towns. Pl. 72." This is characteristic of Burrill's handling of Law Latin adverbs and particles — functional identification with minimal elaboration. No other shelf-standard historical legal dictionaries (Black's, Bouvier's, Tomlin's, Jacob's) appear to carry a dedicated entry for this term, which reflects its status as a drafting particle rather than a doctrinal term. The absence of broader dictionary treatment should not be taken to mean the term was rare in practice; Law Latin pleading and instrument drafting relied heavily on such particles, many of which went unglossed precisely because trained practitioners were expected to know them.
Burrill's citation to Townshend on Pleading locates the term within the procedural tradition. Researchers cannot assume this is the only context in which the word appears, but it is the best-documented point of entry for corpus research purposes.
Jurisdictional Note
As a term of Law Latin, *imposterum* was common across jurisdictions that inherited English common law pleading practice. Its use was not jurisdiction-specific but reflects a shared formal drafting culture. Jurisdictions that abandoned Law Latin in pleadings earlier — as England did by statute in the eighteenth century — would show the term dropping out of formal use correspondingly sooner.