Definition
In civil law and old English law, linum is the Latin term for flax — the plant cultivated for its fiber and seed. The term appears in legal texts governing legacies and bequests of agricultural produce, and in early English writs and pleadings where the specific commodity required precise Latin identification. Fitzherbert rendered linum into English as "lime" (an archaic rendering) in his Natura Brevium, though the reference is clearly to the flax plant and its harvested material rather than the mineral lime.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Wiktionary identifies linum primarily as an alternative form of "Linus," referring to a town in ancient Mysia — a usage entirely unrelated to its legal sense.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's defines Linum as a genus of herbaceous plants including flax (Linum usitatissimum).
The botanical and legal meanings align closely here: both refer to the flax plant. The gap worth noting is that modern readers encountering linum in a legal source may not immediately recognize it as a commodity term governing agricultural property, bequests, or writs — rather than a proper name or a genus label in a scientific catalogue.
Why It Matters in Research
Linum is a narrow technical Latinism that surfaces in two specific research contexts: Roman civil law texts on legacies of agricultural goods, and early English common law writs dealing with the seizure or conveyance of crops and produce.
In the Digest passage cited by Burrill (Dig. 32.70.10, 11), the context is testamentary — what passes under a bequest of household goods or farm produce, and whether flax as a raw or processed material falls within the scope of particular legacies. Researchers working in the civil law tradition, or in early modern English equity and probate records that drew on civil law concepts, may encounter linum in this legacy context.
In the English writ tradition, Registrum Originale 99 and Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (90 K, 91) reference linum in connection with writs for the taking or accounting of specific agricultural commodities. The practical trap: Fitzherbert's English rendering as "lime" is misleading to modern readers who will naturally read "lime" as the mineral or the citrus fruit, not as flax. Any researcher following a citation from Fitzherbert into primary records needs to understand that the underlying commodity is flax, not lime in any modern sense.
Jurisdictional variation is not a live issue for this term; it is effectively a historical term of art confined to civil law and pre-modern English legal materials. Researchers will not encounter it in modern statutes or contemporary pleadings.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the sole historical dictionary source for this entry, and his treatment is brief but complete for the term's limited scope. He identifies the civil law source (the Digest), the English writ source (Registrum Originale), and flags the Fitzherbert translation issue — the most practically useful piece of information in the entry. No other major historical law dictionaries (Jacob, Tomlin, Black's early editions) appear to have carried a separate entry for linum, which reflects how narrow and context-specific the term is. The Digest reference is authentic and traceable; the Fitzherbert citation is equally reliable as a record of early English writ practice.
What Burrill does not address is the substantive legal question embedded in the Digest passage: the Roman juristic debate over whether flax, once harvested and processed into fiber or linen, still fell within legacy language covering raw agricultural goods. That question has some interest for historians of property and probate law, but it lies beyond the lexicographic scope of a dictionary entry.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is effectively confined to Roman civil law sources and pre-modern English legal materials. It carries no operative meaning in current common law or civil law jurisdictions and will not appear in modern codes or court filings.