Definition
A term from Roman civil law identifying a specific degree of collateral kinship on the maternal line. Matertera major denotes a great-aunt — specifically, a great-grandmother's sister. In the Roman kinship vocabulary, this is the sister of one's proavia (paternal or maternal great-grandmother), making her a father's or mother's great-aunt (patris vel matris matertera magna). The term was used in the law of succession and intestacy to determine the order and eligibility of heirs among collateral relatives. It is also called promatertera.
The component terms clarify the logic: matertera in classical Roman law meant a mother's sister (maternal aunt), and the modifier major (greater) extended the designation one generation further back, producing a "greater" or more remote aunt.
Common Confusion
Matertera major should not be confused with matertera magna, though the sources use the phrases in relation to each other. Burrill and Black both explain that matertera magna is a variant phrase (patris vel matris matertera magna) describing the same relational role — a father's or mother's great-aunt. The distinction is primarily terminological rather than substantive, with the Roman Digest using both formulations. Separately, matertera alone (without major) means simply a maternal aunt — one's mother's sister — which is a closer degree of kinship and occupies a different place in the succession table. Conflating the two would misplace a relative by an entire generation.
Bouvier's entry presents an unusual textual condition addressed below.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in the context of Roman and civil law succession analysis. Researchers will encounter it when working with:
— Treatises and commentaries on the Digest of Justinian, particularly Book 38, Title 10, which governs succession among cognates (blood relatives) and enumerates relatives by degree;
— Early American and English legal dictionaries that imported Roman kinship terminology to explain civil law systems relevant to Louisiana, Quebec, and other mixed jurisdictions;
— Historical probate and inheritance disputes in civil law jurisdictions where degree of kinship determined heirship.
The practical trap for corpus researchers is that the Roman kinship vocabulary is internally consistent but uses Latin degree-modifiers (magna, major, maxima, minor) in ways that do not map intuitively onto English generational language. A researcher reading a succession instrument or commentary and encountering matertera major must resist translating it loosely as "major maternal relative" — the term is a precise positional designation, not a qualitative one.
Because American common law jurisdictions generally abandoned the Roman degree-counting system in favor of statutory succession schemes, this term is essentially absent from post-19th-century American case law. Its modern research value is historical and comparative.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Burrill's entries are in close agreement and together provide the most reliable treatment. Both cite Digest 38.10.10.16 for the core definition and Burrill adds a second citation — Dig. 38.10.1.7 — for the synonym promatertera. The convergence of these two sources on the same Digest passages gives researchers a reliable anchor in the primary Roman law text.
Bouvier's entry is anomalous and requires caution. The available text appears fragmentary or corrupted: one portion defines matertera as "mother's sister" (which is the base term, not matertera major), and a second portion references "a great controversy; the thing demanded, not the grandmother's sister" — language that reads as though it belongs to a different entry, possibly materia or materia in controversiam deducta. Researchers using Bouvier's for this term should treat it as unreliable and defer to Black's and Burrill's, both of which are editorially coherent and consistent with the Digest text.
None of the historical sources provide significant doctrinal elaboration beyond the kinship identification function. This reflects the term's narrow technical role: it was a classificatory label used in succession tables, not a term that generated independent legal doctrine.
Jurisdictional Note
Matertera major as a legal term of art has practical relevance only in jurisdictions whose succession law derives from Roman civil law — historically, Louisiana in the American context, and more broadly in Continental European and Latin American legal systems. Common law jurisdictions do not use this terminology, and researchers working in English equity or common law probate sources will not encounter it except in comparative or academic discussion.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses Roman civil law kinship terminology or succession by degree. The matched entries (family_96, ip_3, environmental_48) are not relevant to this term.