Definition
Latin phrase meaning "in common." Used in legal and scholastic texts to describe property, rights, or obligations held jointly or shared among parties without individual partition. In its classical legal sense, the phrase signals that something belongs to, or operates among, multiple parties collectively rather than any one of them exclusively.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a Latin shorthand phrase that appears primarily in maxim collections, Bracton-era treatises, and English common law digests. Researchers are most likely to encounter it while tracing doctrines of common ownership, co-tenancy, or shared rights of way in pre-19th century sources. The phrase functions as a citation anchor in older English legal writing — appearing in Fleta and similar institutional texts — rather than as a term of art carrying a precise technical definition of its own.
The critical navigational point: in historical sources, *in communi* often appears immediately adjacent to the maxim *in conjunctivis, oportet utramque partem esse veram* ("in conjunctives, it is necessary that each part be true"). This is not a definition of *in communi* itself; it is a separate maxim that follows it sequentially in the source texts, particularly Wingate's *Maximes of Reason*. Researchers using digest indices or maxim collections should not conflate these two entries. Black's 1st and 2nd editions, Burrill, and Bouvier all present this pairing, which risks creating the impression that the conjunctive maxim is definitionally connected to *in communi* when it is merely proximate in the original texts.
*In communi* is substantively connected to the broader doctrinal cluster around tenancy in common, common of pasture, common of estovers, and other shared property rights. When tracing these concepts in the Law Mind corpus, researchers should search both the Latin phrase and its English equivalent "in common," as historical sources use both interchangeably and without consistent signaling.
Fleta, the 13th-century English legal treatise cited by all four dictionary sources at lib. 3, c. 4, § 2, is the primary locus for this phrase in the classical common law canon. Researchers working with property rights disputes in medieval and early modern English law will find that citation indispensable.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four sources — Black's 1st, Black's 2nd, Burrill, and Bouvier — agree on the core definition ("in common") and share the identical Fleta citation. This uniformity reflects the phrase's straightforwardness; it needed no elaboration because its meaning was transparent to Latin-literate practitioners. The dictionaries function here as citation guides rather than as definers.
Burrill's entry is the most complete, adding the conjunctive maxim with its Wingate citation and the practical gloss ("in a condition consisting of divers parts in the copulative, both parts must be performed"). Black's 2nd edition mirrors Burrill's fuller treatment. Bouvier's entry is the sparest, offering only the translation and Fleta cite. None of the sources attempt to integrate *in communi* into broader property doctrine, which reflects the phrase's role as a term of location rather than a term of legal significance in its own right.
What the historical dictionaries collectively omit: any treatment of how *in communi* interacts with distinctions between tenancy in common and joint tenancy, or how the phrase was used in equity proceedings involving common property. Researchers needing that doctrinal depth must look beyond the dictionary sources to Coke, Blackstone's Commentaries Book II, or the equity treatises.