Definition
A Latin term from the civil law meaning "industrial" or "produced by industry." In legal usage, *industrialis* functions primarily as a modifier rather than a standalone substantive concept. It describes things that owe their existence to human labor and cultivation — as distinct from things that arise naturally without human effort. The term appears almost exclusively in the compound phrase *fructus industriales* (industrial fruits), where it carries its operative meaning.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *industrialis* in legal texts will almost never find it standing alone. Its practical significance lies entirely in its role within *fructus industriales*, the doctrine distinguishing crops and cultivated yields (industrial fruits) from the natural increase of land or animals (*fructus naturales*). This distinction matters for property law questions involving landlord-tenant relationships, fixtures, emblements, and the rights of outgoing tenants to harvest crops they planted.
In historical sources — particularly civil law treatises and early Anglo-American property texts — the term signals a discussion of agricultural property rights and the doctrine of emblements. If you are searching a corpus for property disputes involving crops, harvests, or tenant rights at common law or equity, *industrialis* and *fructus industriales* are the indexing terms most likely to locate the relevant material.
The civil law origin of the term means it appears with greater frequency in sources influenced by Roman law — Louisiana materials, civilian treatises, and comparative property scholarship — than in purely common law texts, where the concept is more often discussed in English without the Latin marker.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides a compact but accurate entry: *"Industrial; produced by industry"* with a direct cross-reference to *Fructus industriales*. This reflects the term's status as a descriptive adjective rather than a self-contained legal concept. Burrill correctly locates it within the civil law tradition and does not attempt to give it independent doctrinal weight. No divergence exists between historical sources on this term because its meaning has always been narrow and consistent — a Latin qualifier pointing to the labor-origin of a thing.
What historical dictionaries do not provide is the full downstream significance of the *industrialis/naturales* distinction in common law property doctrine. That practical content lives in the *fructus industriales* entry and in treatises on landlord and tenant, not in the entry for the adjective itself.