Definition
A looculus (also rendered *loculus* in classical and ecclesiastical Latin) is an archaic legal term appearing in old records to denote a coffin or burial receptacle. The term surfaces primarily in medieval and early English ecclesiastical and probate records where the disposition of a deceased person's remains or burial goods required formal documentation.
---
Common Confusion
The principal risk of confusion is between *looculus* as "coffin" and *looculus* as "purse," both derivable from the same Latin root. Black's lists both without distinguishing when each meaning applies. In practice, documentary context resolves the ambiguity: burial and mortuary records use the term in its coffin sense; financial and administrative records may use the same Latin root to describe a money container. Researchers should not assume one meaning without examining the surrounding text.
---
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-modern ecclesiastical records, early probate inventories, or medieval land and church records may encounter this term in contexts involving burial rights, mortuary fees, or the disposition of goods associated with burial. Its significance is narrow but specific: misreading *looculus* as a reference to a purse or financial instrument (given that Black's own entry cross-references "purse") could introduce a material error in interpreting what a document is actually recording — the burial of a person versus a financial transaction.
The term is essentially a scribal or Latinized form and does not appear as an operative term in modern legal instruments. When it appears, it almost always signals that the surrounding document is ecclesiastical, mortuary, or testamentary in origin, and the researcher should orient their analysis accordingly. It is most likely to appear in transcriptions of ecclesiastical court records, bishops' registers, or early inventories of church property.
The cross-reference to "purse" in Black's reflects the dual Latin meaning of *loculus* — a small compartment, which could describe either a coffin or a money pouch — and serves as a caution: context in the original document is determinative. A *looculus* in a burial record means a coffin; the same Latin root in an account record may reference a financial container.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) defines the term tersely: "In old records. A coffin; a purse." This minimal entry is characteristic of Black's treatment of archaic Latin ecclesiastical terms, which are catalogued for reference but given no substantive legal analysis. The dual gloss — coffin and purse — reflects the genuine polysemy of the Latin *loculus* rather than two distinct legal usages, and Black's does not attempt to distinguish between them.
No other shelf sources in the Law Mind corpus provide an entry for this term, which is consistent with its status as a rare, archaic Latin borrowing without independent doctrinal development in the common law tradition. The absence of this term from later editions of Black's and from Bouvier's reinforces that it never acquired technical legal meaning beyond its use as a descriptive noun in historical records.
---