Definition
Latin. In Roman law, to command or enact a law; literally, "to order a law." The phrase describes the act of giving formal consent and authority to a legislative enactment, particularly the role played by the Roman people or senate in ratifying and legitimizing law. The term refers not merely to the drafting or proposal of law but to the authoritative act that gives a law its binding force.
The phrase appears in classical Roman public law to describe the function of the popular assemblies — specifically the comitia — in enacting legislation. To legem jubere was to exercise the sovereign power of commanding that a rule have the force of law, as distinct from merely advising or recommending it.
Common Confusion
Legem jubere should not be confused with legem ferre (to carry or propose a law) or legem scire (to know the law). Legem ferre describes the act of bringing a bill forward for consideration; legem jubere describes the authoritative act of commanding that it be law — the moment of enactment rather than the moment of proposal. The distinction matters in Roman constitutional analysis because ferre and jubere represented different stages and different actors in the legislative process.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of Roman public law with narrow but precise usage in legal sources. Researchers are most likely to encounter legem jubere in historical treatises on Roman constitutional theory, in commentary on the nature of legislative authority, or in common law works that draw on Roman sources to explain the foundation and duration of statutory law.
The Black's Law Dictionary entry in the source material presents the term alongside a citation to 7 Coke 25, which connects it to the proposition that human laws are born, live, and — in an unending succession — continue and die. This contextual placement is significant: the term was invoked in early common law literature not simply as Roman antiquarianism but as part of an argument about the nature and limits of legislative authority. Researchers using older English treatises and reports should be alert to this use of Roman law vocabulary to support theoretical claims about the durability and succession of statutes.
Because the surviving dictionary entries are fragmentary (Bouvier's simply cross-references to LEGEM SCIS- without completing the entry, and Black's trails into adjacent material), researchers should not treat these sources as authoritative definitions in isolation. The term's full significance must be reconstructed from Roman law scholarship and from the contexts in which common law writers deployed it.
Researchers working on theories of sovereignty, legislative power, or the reception of Roman law into English jurisprudence will find this term a useful marker: its appearance in a source signals engagement with classical Roman concepts of popular or senatorial authority over legislation.
Historical Dictionary Support
The source dictionaries provide incomplete coverage. Black's Law Dictionary places legem jubere in Roman law and connects it to the concept of human law's continuity and succession, citing Coke — but the entry as reproduced trails into adjacent Latin maxims (Leges Non Scriptae), suggesting the relevant passage was part of a broader discussion of the nature of enacted law rather than a standalone definition. The citation to 7 Coke 25 points toward Coke's commentary on the life and duration of statutes, where Roman law principles were used to illuminate the common law's treatment of legislative authority.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides no substantive entry, redirecting the reader to a related term (likely Legem Scire or a similar phrase) without explanation. This omission means Bouvier's is unhelpful as a primary source for this term, and researchers should not infer meaning from the cross-reference alone.
Neither dictionary situates the term fully within Roman constitutional theory. For that, the researcher must go beyond these dictionaries to civil law sources. The concept belongs to the framework in which the Roman populus, assembled in comitia, had the power to jubere — to order — as opposed to the senate's power to auctoritatem interponere (to interpose authority). This distinction between commanding and authorizing was fundamental to classical Roman public law and was discussed at length by Cicero, Livy, and later by institutional writers such as Gaius and Ulpian.