Definition
To pledge. In old European and medieval law, *inwadiare* denotes the act of giving something in pledge — placing property or an obligation in a state of security for the performance of a duty or repayment of a debt. The term appears in the Lombard laws (*Leges Langobardorum*) and belongs to the Latin vocabulary of early medieval legal instruments, where pledging relations were frequently memorialized in formal written or witnessed acts.
The term is a variant of *invadiare* (see related terms), the two forms appearing interchangeably in the sources of old European customary and statutory law.
---
Why It Matters in Research
*Inwadiare* is a term a researcher will encounter almost exclusively in medieval legal texts, glossaries of Lombard or Frankish law, and the Latin apparatus of early English and continental legal instruments. Its practical research value is narrow but precise: if you encounter it in a primary source — a charter, a glossary, or a treatise on the law of pledges — it signals a pledging transaction and points you toward the broader cluster of medieval security concepts.
Two navigational points matter:
First, the variant spelling. Burrill cross-references *invadiare* as the preferred or alternative form. In corpus searches of historical legal materials, both spellings must be queried. The *in-* prefix with either *v* or *w* reflects common scribal and regional variation in medieval Latin transcription. A search limited to one spelling will miss instances of the other.
Second, the Lombard law citation. Burrill attributes the term to *Leges Langobardorum*, lib. 1, tit. 14, l. 10 — the Lombard code compiled under the Lombard kings and later incorporated into the legal fabric of early medieval Italy and, through scholarly transmission, into the canon of comparative legal history. Researchers working in the history of property, security, or pledge law in continental European legal systems may find this citation a useful anchor point, but should approach the underlying text through established critical editions of the Lombard laws rather than relying on secondary glossaries alone.
The term has no meaningful modern legal life. It does not appear in common law, civil law, or statutory systems in active use. Its presence in a legal dictionary like Burrill's reflects that dictionary's function as a reference for legal historians and practitioners who encountered Latin maxims and medieval terminology in older treatises and title instruments.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the sole source in the Law Mind corpus for *inwadiare*, and his entry is brief: a one-line definition ("to pledge"), a citation to the Lombard laws, and a cross-reference to *invadiare*. No elaboration on the mechanics of the pledge relationship is offered under this headword; Burrill apparently treated the term as a pure lexical entry requiring identification rather than analysis.
The brevity is not a deficiency — *inwadiare* is a term of identification, not a term of doctrine. What Burrill provides is sufficient for its purpose: a researcher encountering the word in a primary source can confirm its meaning and locate its legal context. What Burrill does not provide — and what no historical dictionary entry under this headword appears to provide — is any discussion of how the pledge relation operated under Lombard law, how *inwadiare* related to Roman law concepts of *pignus* or *hypotheca*, or how the term traveled (or failed to travel) into later common law or civil law vocabulary.
For those comparative and historical questions, the dictionary entry is a starting point only, and researchers must proceed to the primary sources and to treatises on the history of security interests.
---
Jurisdictional Note
*Inwadiare* is not a term of art in any modern jurisdiction. It belongs to the legal Latin of Lombard customary law and appears in historical legal literature as a relic of medieval European legal vocabulary. Jurisdictional variation in the modern sense is not applicable.
---