Definition
A term of ecclesiastical and Roman legal antiquity referring to a ceremonial head covering or vestment worn as a mark of sacred or priestly office. In legal sources, the term appears primarily as a synonym for a coif or cassock — garments associated with clerical or judicial dignity. The word was borrowed directly from Roman usage, where it described a fillet or band of white wool worn by priests and other honored persons as a sign of consecrated status.
The term has no operative legal function in modern law. It appears in historical legal dictionaries as a term of art from ecclesiastical and Roman law contexts, relevant mainly to the interpretation of older texts concerning clerical vestments, church office, and the rights or dignities attached to sacerdotal rank.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A fillet of white wool worn on the head by ancient Roman priests; a head covering worn by early Christian priests; a ribbon on a bishop's mitre.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A sort of fillet worn by dignitaries, priests, and others among the ancient Romans. It was generally white.
The gap between ordinary and legal usage here is narrow but worth noting. Common sources treat the infula as a specific physical object — a woolen fillet or ribbon. Legal dictionaries, following Jacob's Law Dictionary, use the term more loosely to encompass a broader category of clerical vestments, equating it with the coif or cassock. A researcher encountering "infula" in a legal text should not assume strict correspondence with the Roman priestly fillet; the term may refer generally to any garment signifying ecclesiastical dignity or office.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This term is an orphan in modern legal research — it does not appear in contemporary statutes, regulations, or case law and carries no operative legal weight today. Its research value is exclusively historical and contextual.
Researchers are most likely to encounter "infula" in three settings: (1) medieval and early modern ecclesiastical law sources dealing with the vestments, dignities, or privileges of clergy; (2) Roman law texts and their common law commentaries, where the term marks the sacred or inviolable character of a person or object; and (3) older English legal dictionaries that reproduce Jacob's definition without elaboration.
The most significant research trap is mistaking the term for a technical legal category with defined legal consequences. In Roman law, the infula did carry genuine legal significance — adorning a person or animal with the infula could signal consecration, inviolability, or sacrificial purpose, with real legal implications in sacral law. That dimension is almost entirely absent from the English legal dictionary tradition, which strips the term to its most superficial referent (a garment) without preserving the underlying legal concept.
Researchers working in canon law, ecclesiastical property disputes, or the history of clerical privilege may find it necessary to go beyond the common law dictionary tradition entirely and consult Roman law sources or ecclesiastical law treatises to understand the full weight the term carried in its original contexts.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary reproduce the same minimal entry verbatim: "A coif, or a cassock. Jacob." This entry traces directly to Giles Jacob's Law Dictionary, one of the foundational sources for early English legal lexicography, and neither Black's edition adds interpretation, context, or expansion.
The brevity is telling. Jacob and Black's were not Roman law treatises, and "infula" appears to have been included for completeness — as a term a reader might encounter in an older ecclesiastical or civil law source — rather than because it had active circulation in English common law practice.
The Webster's 1913 and Wiktionary definitions collectively preserve more of the term's historical texture than the legal dictionaries do, describing the physical object with greater specificity and acknowledging its Christian ecclesiastical use alongside its Roman origins. For a researcher needing to understand what an author actually meant by "infula" in a primary source, the common-language dictionaries and Roman law sources will often be more useful than the legal dictionary tradition.
No significant divergence exists between the two Black's editions on this term; both are derivative of Jacob and neither reflects independent legal analysis.
---