Definition
A jurat is the certification clause appearing at the foot of an affidavit or sworn statement, recording when and where the oath was administered and identifying the officer before whom the affiant appeared and swore. It is not the oath itself, nor the affiant's signature block — it is the official notation that the swearing ceremony took place, completed and signed by the administering officer.
A typical jurat reads: "Sworn and subscribed before me this ___ day of ___, [year]. [Signature and title of officer]."
The jurat serves two functions: (1) it authenticates the document as a sworn instrument rather than a mere signed statement, and (2) it identifies the officer responsible for administering the oath, whose authority to do so can be verified and challenged if necessary.
The term carries a distinct secondary meaning in English and Channel Islands usage: a jurat is also a public official — a magistrate, alderman, or sworn councilman — particularly in the Cinque Ports and the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, where jurats serve as lay judges forming part of the Royal Court.
---
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A sworn statement concerning where, when, and before whom an oath has been made; also, historically, a sworn person, a juror, a medieval informant sworn to report crimes, a councilman of the Cinque Ports, or a magistrate of the Channel Islands serving for life as part of the islands' royal court.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A person under oath; specifically, an officer of the nature of an alderman in certain English municipal corporations; also the memorandum or certificate at the end of an affidavit showing when, before whom, and where it was sworn or affirmed.
Editorial note: American legal usage has almost entirely collapsed the term to its documentary sense — the certification clause — and treats the official-person meaning as a historical curiosity or a foreign law matter. Researchers working in English legal history or Channel Islands materials will encounter jurat as a title of office, not a clause, and should not read those sources through the American documentary lens.
---
Common Confusion
JURAT vs. ACKNOWLEDGMENT: These are the two most commonly confused notarial acts, and the confusion has real consequences. A jurat requires the signer to appear before the officer and take an oath or affirmation that the contents of the document are true — the officer administers a verbal oath. An acknowledgment requires only that the signer appear before the officer and acknowledge that they signed the document voluntarily — no oath as to the truth of the contents is administered. Affidavits require a jurat; deeds and many contracts require an acknowledgment. Using the wrong form can render a document defective for its intended purpose.
JURAT vs. VERIFICATION: A verification is a sworn statement attached to a pleading confirming the truth of its contents. It functions similarly to a jurat but is a broader term for the sworn attestation itself, while the jurat is technically the officer's certification clause that completes and authenticates the verification or affidavit.
---
Why It Matters in Research
The jurat is a frequent source of technical defect challenges in affidavit practice. Historical cases turn on whether the officer's signature, title, or official description was required as a matter of validity or merely directory. Bouvier's notes that courts were divided on whether an unsigned or incompletely described jurat was fatal to the affidavit. Researchers encountering pre-twentieth-century affidavit challenges should look carefully at the specific jurisdictional rule governing jurat requirements, which varied considerably.
In American practice, the distinction between jurat and acknowledgment has been codified in most states through notarial acts statutes and, since 1999, through the Uniform Law Commission's Uniform Notarial Acts. Researchers working with documents executed before those codifications will find the rules less standardized and the terminology less consistent.
The secondary meaning — jurat as an official person — is largely invisible in American legal dictionaries after the mid-nineteenth century but remains live in English local government history and Channel Islands constitutional law. Burrill's is the most attentive of the shelf sources to this dimension. Researchers using English reports or treatises through the nineteenth century should be alert to the term appearing in either sense with little signal as to which is intended.
Corpus researchers should note that Anderson's entry reproduced here under "jurat" is misattributed in the source material — it defines judicial power, not jurat. This is a known indexing artifact. Do not rely on Anderson's for this term without verifying the source text directly.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
The shelf sources converge on the documentary definition with notable consistency. Black's (both editions) gives the clause-at-the-foot formulation without qualification. Bouvier's provides the most operationally useful entry, supplying a model form and flagging the live dispute over whether the officer's signature and official description were essential to validity. Burrill's adds the Latin root (juratum) and notes that English practice additionally required the place of swearing, a requirement American practice generally dropped. The old Latin form — "Juratum die — coram J.H." — illuminates why the term attached to the document rather than the person: it named the act of swearing, not the swearer.
Webster's 1913 is unusually comprehensive for a general dictionary, capturing both the documentary and official-person meanings. Wiktionary extends this with the medieval informant usage, which is historically attested but of limited relevance to legal research outside of English legal history scholarship.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: the modern statutory framework distinguishing jurat from acknowledgment. None of the shelf sources engage with this as a formal doctrinal distinction, reflecting the period before notarial acts were systematically codified. Researchers should not read the shelf sources as stating current law on jurat requirements.
---
Jurisdictional Note
American jurisdictions vary on the precise formal requirements for a valid jurat, including whether the officer's seal is required in addition to signature, and whether the venue (state and county) must appear. Most states now address this by statute. Channel Islands law — particularly Jersey and Guernsey — uses jurat as a title of judicial office with constitutional significance, a usage entirely distinct from the American documentary meaning.
---
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Affidavits and Sworn Statements; Notarial Acts
---