Definition
A Latin term from Roman civil law meaning an intestate — a person who dies without a valid will. The term operates as both a noun (the person who died intestate) and an adjective (describing the condition of dying without a will). Under Roman law, captured in the Digest at 50.17.7, the concept encompassed several distinct failure modes: the decedent made no will at all; the will was made but was legally defective; the will was subsequently revoked or rendered void; or the will was valid on its face but no heir came forward to claim under it. In each case, the legal result was the same — the estate passed not by testamentary direction but by operation of law.
In modern usage, intestatus has been fully displaced by its English derivatives "intestate" and "intestacy." The Latin form appears almost exclusively in historical legal materials, Roman law scholarship, and older treatises.
Common Confusion
Intestatus should not be confused with the broader regime it triggers. The term identifies the person or the condition; intestacy (or the law of intestate succession) is the body of rules that then governs distribution of the estate. Researchers who encounter intestatus in historical sources are reading a descriptor of status, not a reference to the succession scheme itself. Additionally, the Roman law definition was technically broader than many modern intestacy statutes: a person could die intestatus even with a will in existence, if that will was defective, revoked, or produced no heir — a nuance that modern usage sometimes collapses by treating "intestate" as simply meaning "no will was made."
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter intestatus primarily in three contexts: transcriptions of Roman law texts (especially the Digest and Institutes), medieval English legal materials citing Roman authority, and 18th- and 19th-century treatises and law dictionaries that preserved Latin terminology as shorthand for civil law concepts.
The key research trap is scope. The Roman definition embedded in the Digest maxim — intestatus decedit qui aut omnino testamentum non fecit; aut non jure fecit; aut id quod fecerat ruptum irritumve factum est; aut nemo ex eo heres exstitit — describes four distinct categories of intestate death. When working with early English ecclesiastical court records or equity materials influenced by Roman and canon law, this broader definition may govern interpretation. Common law sources, by contrast, tended to equate intestate simply with the absence of a will, without always tracking the Roman taxonomy of will-failure.
Fleta (lib. 2, c. 57, § 10), cited by Burrill, is the relevant bridge text: it shows that medieval English legal writers adopted the Latin term directly from Roman sources, meaning that early English intestacy doctrine carried Roman conceptual architecture even when applied in English ecclesiastical and chancery proceedings. Researchers tracing the development of English intestacy law should treat intestatus in these materials as a signal that civil law — not common law — reasoning may be driving the analysis.
Cross-corpus connections: intestatus links forward to intestacy statutes, administration of estates, letters of administration, and the development of distribution schemes under the English Statute of Distributions (1670), which itself partially codified the Roman approach. It links backward to Roman fideicommissa and the broader civil law of succession.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: an intestate, one who dies without a will, grounded in Dig. 50.17.7. The entries are unusually consistent, suggesting the term had settled, uncontested meaning across the period these dictionaries covered.
Burrill provides the most complete treatment, preserving the full Latin maxim from the Digest and adding the Fleta citation, which connects Roman civil law doctrine to medieval English practice. Black's (2nd Ed.) also quotes the maxim but truncates it slightly. Bouvier's is the most spare, offering only the core definition without the qualifying categories.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss is any discussion of how the broader Roman taxonomy of intestate death — covering defective wills, revoked wills, and heirless wills — was received (or selectively ignored) in English common law. Researchers relying solely on these entries for jurisdictional nuance will find them insufficient; the dictionaries define the term but do not map its migration across legal systems.
Jurisdictional Note
As a Latin civil law term, intestatus has no direct modern jurisdictional application in U.S. or English law — its English derivatives govern in practice. In jurisdictions with strong civil law heritage (Louisiana, Quebec, Scotland), the Roman conceptual framework behind the term, particularly the multiple categories of intestate death, may retain greater historical relevance when interpreting older succession disputes.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Intestacy and Intestate Succession; Roman Law of Succession; Administration of Estates.