LARIUS - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

LARIUSAuthored

The Law Mind • 570 words

Definition

Larius is a term from Roman and civil law denoting a type of domestic servant or household attendant. In the context of Roman legal and social organization, the term referred to one who tended or had charge of the lares — the household gods or domestic spirits venerated in Roman homes. By extension, the term was applied to a class of domestic attendants associated with the maintenance of the household's religious and practical domestic functions.

The term appears in historical legal dictionaries primarily in discussions of Roman domestic law and the legal status of household servants, including questions of their rights, obligations, and relationship to the paterfamilias.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers encountering larius in historical legal texts are most likely working in one of two contexts: Roman law sources (including Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis and commentary thereon) or early modern civil law treatises that drew heavily on Roman domestic organization. The term rarely, if ever, appears in common law sources, and its presence in a document is itself a signal that the text is operating within a civilian or mixed civilian tradition.

The Bouvier's source material retrieved under this entry appears to have been mismatched — the text provided describes the Lord High Chancellor in the English system, which is unrelated to larius. Researchers should be alert to this kind of indexing artifact in historical dictionary compilations, where proximity in alphabetical sequence or digitization errors can cause entries to bleed into one another. If you have encountered larius in a primary source and are seeking its precise legal meaning in context, the better approach is to consult the Digest of Justinian directly, along with Berger's Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (1953), which provides reliable entries for Roman legal terminology.

Because larius is a term of Roman domestic law with no direct equivalent in English common law, it does not carry jurisdictional variation in the modern sense. Its relevance is historical and comparative.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's Law Dictionary includes larius, though the source material available for this entry was corrupted during retrieval and substituted text relating to the Lord High Chancellor. This substitution is not Bouvier's error but a digitization or indexing artifact. Bouvier's treatment of Roman law terms was generally derivative of civilian sources and intended to assist American practitioners encountering civil law concepts in Louisiana practice, admiralty, or comparative legal argument.

Other historical legal dictionaries, including Black's Law Dictionary in its earlier editions, do not prominently feature larius, reflecting the term's marginal role in Anglo-American legal practice. The term's primary scholarly habitat is Roman law scholarship rather than practitioner-oriented reference works.

Jurisdictional Note

Larius has no operative legal meaning in any modern common law jurisdiction. It may appear in Louisiana legal history given that state's civilian heritage, but it carries no current statutory or doctrinal weight there either. Its significance is exclusively historical and scholarly.

LARIUSmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

For the history of the office, see CANCEL- In England the title is borne by several functionaries, thus :- The Lord High Chancellor is prolocu- tor of the house of lords, formerly presided over the court of chancery, and is principal judge of the high court of justice under the judicature act, 1873. He is a privy councilior by virtue of his office, and visitor of all hospitals and colleges of the king's foundation for which no other visitor is appointed. To him belongs the appoint- ment of justices of the peace throughout the kingdom. Cowel; 3 Bla. Com. 38, 47; 2 Steph. Com. 382; 3 id. 320. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- caster, who presides over the court of the duchy, to judge and determine contro- versies relating to lands holden of the king in right of the Duchy of Lancaster. This court has a concurrent jurisdiction with the court of chancery in matters relating to the duchy. Cowel; 3 Bla. Com. 78;8 Steph. Com., 11th ed. 372, n. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is an officer who formerly sat in the court of exchequer, and, with the rest of the court, ordered things for the king's benefit. Cowel. This part of his functions is now practically obsolete; and the chancellor of the exche- quer is now known as the minister of state who has control over the national revenue and expenditure. 2 Steph. Com., 11th ed. 467. The Chancellor of a Diocese is the officer appointed to assist a bishop in mat- ters of law, and to hold his consistory courts for him. 1 Bla. Com. 382; 2 Steph. Com., 11th ed. 684. The Chancellor ofa University, who is the principal officer of the university. His office is for the most part honorary.