Definition
In civil law, a litura is an obliteration, blot, or erasure appearing in a will or other legal instrument. The term refers specifically to a physical mark that obscures or destroys text — whether by smearing, crossing out, or otherwise defacing the original writing — raising questions about the authenticity, integrity, or testamentary intent behind the document.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A spot growing paler at one end.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not defined in Webster's 1913; the term did not pass into general English use.
The common meaning captures only the visual character of a fading or smeared mark. The legal meaning goes further: a litura in a will is not merely an aesthetic imperfection but a legally consequential alteration that could indicate deliberate cancellation, accidental damage, or attempted fraud. The question courts confronted was whether the obliteration expressed the testator's intent to revoke or modify a provision — making the physical mark a matter of testamentary interpretation, not just document condition.
Why It Matters in Research
Litura is a Roman civil law term that enters historical Anglo-American legal writing almost exclusively through treatises and digests engaging with the civil law tradition, rather than through common law case development. Researchers should be aware of several navigational points.
First, the term appears almost exclusively in pre-20th century sources. Modern legal writing on the same concept uses obliteration, cancellation, or interlineation instead. Searching historical sources for litura will surface civil-law-influenced treatise commentary; searching for obliteration or cancellation will capture the common law and equity treatment of the same phenomenon.
Second, the stakes of litura in will construction are significant: under Roman law, an obliteration in a will could affect whether a legacy was treated as revoked, and whether the surrounding provisions remained valid. This connects directly to broader questions of testamentary intent and dependent relative revocation — a doctrine that persisted into American and English probate practice.
Third, Burrill's entry is the most useful of the historical sources because it supplies the Digest citation (Dig. 28.4.1.1) and the Latin root, situating litura within the technical vocabulary of Roman testamentary law. Researchers tracing the civil law treatment of will cancellation should begin there before moving to the Digest itself.
Fourth, do not confuse the entry for LITURA with the immediately following entry in Burrill's for LITUS (sea-shore). The two terms are unrelated, but their adjacency in alphabetical sources occasionally causes transcription or indexing confusion in compiled legal reference works.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree on the core definition: an obliteration or blot in a will or other instrument. The Black's first and second editions and Bouvier's track nearly identical language. Burrill's adds the most scholarly depth, providing the Latin derivation from linere (to daub or smear) and pinning the definition to Digest 28.4.1.1.
What the historical dictionaries largely omit is the legal consequence of a litura — they define the physical phenomenon without explaining why it mattered. The significance lay in Roman testamentary rules governing cancellation and revocation: a litura could constitute evidence of animus revocandi (intent to revoke), or it could raise suspicion of forgery or unauthorized alteration. Treatise writers such as Domat and Pothier, and later civilians commenting on succession, addressed the interpretive problems litura created more fully than any of the dictionary sources do.
Black's first edition entry appears truncated in the available source material, breaking off mid-definition ("An obliter-"). The second edition supplies the complete text and Digest citation, making it the more reliable of the two Black's sources for this term.
Jurisdictional Note
Litura as a term of art is a creature of Roman and civil law and has no direct statutory or common law footprint in American jurisdictions. Its relevance to Anglo-American research is primarily historical and comparative — particularly in Louisiana, where civil law succession rules create a closer connection to Roman testamentary concepts than in other states.