Definition
Latin. "Born." In legal usage, *natus* denotes a person already born and having legal existence, as distinguished from one not yet born. The term appears primarily as a component of compound Latin phrases used in historical common law and Roman law contexts to describe a person's status in relation to a particular event, person, or political moment.
The two most important compound forms are:
1. ANTE NATUS — One born before a particular event or person. In the common law tradition, most frequently used to describe a person born before a significant political change, such as a revolution or change of sovereignty. The classic legal application concerned persons born before the American Revolution who retained or lost rights of inheritance and citizenship based on their loyalty and the applicable legal regime.
2. POST NATUS — One born after a particular event or person. The counterpart to *ante natus*. Used to identify persons whose legal status, rights of inheritance, or citizenship derived from their birth occurring after a defining event.
In Roman law, *natus* also anchors the terminology of agnatic and cognatic kinship. The phrase *ad eum nati* (born to him) described agnates — persons related through an unbroken male line to a common male ancestor — as distinguished from cognates, who traced relation through or to a female line.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): *Natus* is not a word in ordinary modern English; it appears only as a Latin root meaning "born," surviving in English derivatives such as "natal," "native," "prenatal," and "innate."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as an English word. Webster's recognizes the Latin root through derived English terms.
The gap here is not between legal and common usage but between active legal terminology and dormant Latin. Researchers encountering *natus* in legal texts are almost always reading historical material; the term carries no living English meaning independent of its Latin root and legal compounds.
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Common Confusion
NATUS vs. NASCITURUS: These terms are routinely paired and sometimes confused. *Nasciturus* means one about to be born, or one conceived but not yet born — the unborn child recognized by law for certain limited purposes. *Natus* means one already born. The distinction matters acutely in succession and inheritance contexts: a *nasciturus* may be treated as born for purposes of taking under a will or intestacy (the fiction that the unborn child already in existence is treated as born when it is to the child's benefit), but the child's actual legal personhood as *natus* begins at live birth. Conflating the two in historical sources can produce misreadings of inheritance rules.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers are most likely to encounter *natus* — and especially *ante natus* — in historical materials dealing with the legal consequences of political upheaval and changes of sovereignty. In the Anglo-American tradition, the *ante natus* / *post natus* distinction was a live legal question in at least two historical contexts: first, following the union of the English and Scottish crowns, where the status of those born before and after the union bore on rights of inheritance in both kingdoms; and second, following American independence, where courts and legislatures grappled with whether persons born before the Revolution retained rights as citizens or were treated as aliens.
Researchers working in post-Revolutionary American case law, colonial inheritance disputes, or conflict-of-laws materials from the early Republic should be alert to *ante natus* appearing as a term of art for Loyalists or persons whose citizenship status was contested.
In Roman law materials and in historical discussions of agnatic succession, *natus* and its compounds anchor the classification of relatives. Anderson's entry points toward the broader Roman law framework of agnates (*agnati*) and cognates (*cognati*), which structured inheritance under the classical Roman system. Researchers in civil law, Louisiana law, or comparative succession will need to follow this thread into the agnation/cognation distinction, which has no precise common law counterpart.
The term also appears in ecclesiastical and canon law contexts, where legitimacy of birth (*natus ex justis nuptiis* versus *natus spurius*) affected inheritance of church offices, legitimacy of children, and capacity to take under certain instruments.
A research trap: Black's first edition gives only the bare Latin gloss. The second edition adds the *ante natus* / *post natus* framework. Anderson adds the Roman law kinship dimension. No single entry is complete; triangulating across all three sources gives the fullest picture available in the historical dictionaries.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries agree on the core definition — *natus* means "born" — but diverge significantly in scope and application.
Black's first edition offers only the minimal contrast with *nasciturus*, which is useful as far as it goes but leaves the researcher without the compound forms.
Black's second edition improves substantially by introducing *ante natus* and *post natus* with brief illustrative examples (birth before the father's death; birth before a political revolution). This addition reflects the real legal utility of the term, which lies almost entirely in its compound forms rather than its bare Latin meaning.
Anderson's entry is the most expansive and the most distinctively useful, connecting *natus* to the Roman law of agnation and cognation. The entry is incomplete as reproduced — it breaks off mid-sentence — but what survives identifies the core distinction: agnates are blood relations traceable through males alone up to a common male ancestor. This Roman law framework underlies much of civil law succession doctrine and appears in historical treatises on the law of persons.
What none of the historical dictionaries address: the role of *ante natus* in post-Revolutionary American legal disputes over citizenship and property rights. That application requires moving from the dictionary to case law and treatise literature of the early Republic.
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Jurisdictional Note
The *ante natus* / *post natus* distinction had its most sustained American legal life in states with significant Loyalist property disputes after the Revolution — particularly New York, South Carolina, and Massachusetts. Civil law jurisdictions (Louisiana most prominently) retain traces of the agnation/cognation framework through their civilian inheritance traditions, though modern Louisiana succession law has been substantially reformed.
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