Definition
In Roman and civil law, the *mandans* (plural: *mandantes*) is the principal party in a contract of mandate — the person who assigns, requests, or authorizes another (the *mandatarius*) to perform an act or service on their behalf, typically without compensation. The mandans is the directing party: the one who gives instructions, places a task in another's hands, and retains the legal interest in the outcome of that task.
The relationship is analogous to a principal in a modern agency arrangement. The mandans initiates the mandate, defines its scope, and bears responsibility for indemnifying the mandatarius for any costs or liabilities properly incurred in carrying out the instruction.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Mandans" appears in contemporary English only as the plural of "Mandan," referring to the Indigenous people of the Northern Plains.
Historical common usage: The term had no general English common usage; it is a Latin legal term imported directly into civil law texts and legal dictionaries.
Editorial note: A researcher encountering "mandans" in a legal source should not confuse it with its modern Wiktionary entry, which reflects an entirely unrelated ethnonym. In legal texts — particularly those engaging Roman law, Louisiana civil law, or Scots law — the term is technical and carries the specific meaning of the instructing party in a mandate. Context will make the distinction clear, but the near-homonymy is worth flagging for researchers working across mixed source types.
Common Confusion
MANDANS vs. MANDATARIUS: These two terms describe opposite sides of the same relationship. The mandans gives the instruction; the mandatarius receives and executes it. Historical dictionaries sometimes discuss the roles interchangeably when describing mandate as a bilateral transaction, which can obscure who bears which obligations. The mandans bears the duty to reimburse; the mandatarius bears the duty to perform.
MANDANS vs. MANDATOR: Some sources, particularly those translating loosely from the Latin, use "mandator" as an Anglicized equivalent of mandans. The terms are functionally synonymous, but mandans is the classical Latin form appearing in the Institutes, while mandator appears more frequently in English-language treatises adapting civil law concepts.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter mandans primarily in sources engaging Roman law directly or in jurisdictions with a strong civilian heritage — Louisiana, Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa are the primary common-law-adjacent systems where mandate as a distinct contract category survived. In purely common law jurisdictions, the functional role of the mandans was absorbed into agency doctrine, and the term itself largely disappeared from practice.
The key research trap is anachronism: early American legal dictionaries included mandans because 19th-century American legal education engaged Roman law texts heavily, not because the term was in active American court use. Finding mandans in a Black's or Bouvier's does not mean the concept governed the case being researched unless the jurisdiction had civilian law roots or the case explicitly invoked civil law principles.
In Louisiana sources specifically, mandate remains a live category of contract law, codified in the Louisiana Civil Code, and distinguishing the mandans from the mandatarius has practical doctrinal significance — particularly around the mandans's duty to indemnify and the question of whether the mandate was gratuitous.
Researchers working with the Digest of Justinian or the Institutes (the source cited in all four dictionary entries as "Inst. 3, 27, 1, et seq.") will find the fullest classical treatment of the mandans's obligations, including the rule that a mandate undertaken for the exclusive benefit of the mandatarius is treated as mere advice rather than a binding contract.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries are in close agreement, reproducing substantially the same definition: the mandans is the employing party in a mandate who gives a task to another. Black's (both editions) and Burrill explicitly identify the term as Latin and civil law in origin. Bouvier's is the most spare, omitting the Latin tag and the Institutes citation.
None of the source dictionaries expand meaningfully on the mandans's obligations, the conditions that render a mandate void (such as illegality or gratuitousness on the mandatarius's side), or how the concept interfaced with emerging common law agency doctrine. For that analysis, researchers must move to the treatise literature — Pothier on Obligations or Story on Agency — rather than relying on dictionary entries alone.
Burrill's inclusion of the derivation from *mandare* is a useful reminder that the same root generates mandate, mandatarius, and the writ of mandamus — related but distinct concepts that share etymological origin without sharing legal function.
Jurisdictional Note
The term and its underlying doctrine are operative primarily in civil law jurisdictions. In Louisiana, mandate is a codified contract type (Louisiana Civil Code arts. 2989–3032), and the roles of mandans and mandatarius carry specific statutory content. In common law jurisdictions, mandate was absorbed into agency and the Latin terminology is encountered only in historical or comparative law contexts.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Mandate (Civil Law); Agency and Principal-Agent Relationships; Roman Law Contracts.