Definition
In old ecclesiastical law, a nun. The term appears in medieval Latin legal texts and ecclesiastical records to designate a woman who had taken religious vows and entered a convent. Its masculine counterpart, nonnus, designated a monk.
The term has no operative significance in modern law. It survives only as a marker of ecclesiastical status in historical documents — charters, wills, court proceedings, and church records from the medieval and early modern periods.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A grandmother, especially one with Italian ancestry.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not recorded. The term was not in general English use in the nineteenth century.
Editorial note: The gap is total. The modern colloquial "nonna" refers to a grandmother, typically in Italian-American family usage. The legal term is a Latin ecclesiastical designation for a nun. A researcher encountering "nonna" in a historical legal document should not read it as any reference to kinship or family relation — it signals religious status, not ancestry or lineage.
Common Confusion
Burrill's Law Dictionary appends to the entry for nonna a separate maxim — "Non observata forma, infertur adnullatio actus" — without a clean section break. Researchers skimming Burrill may conflate the two entries, reading the maxim as an extension of the definition of nonna. It is not. The maxim concerns nullity of acts where prescribed legal form is not followed, a principle of English and French evidence law. The proximity is an artifact of alphabetical arrangement, not conceptual connection.
Why It Matters in Research
Nonna is a narrow, historically bounded term. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in:
Medieval ecclesiastical records. Charters conveying land to or from religious institutions, bequests to convents, and church court proceedings may use nonna to identify a party's status. Identifying a party as a nonna bears on her legal capacity — religious vows affected a woman's ability to hold property, enter contracts, and appear in secular courts under canon and common law frameworks.
Glossaries and digests. Black's and Burrill both carry the entry, meaning it surfaces in legal glossary searches. The definition is stable and undisputed across these sources.
Latin manuscript research. Researchers working in ecclesiastical archives or with untranslated Latin instruments will encounter nonna as a status term, distinct from domina (lady), soror (sister), or abbatissa (abbess). The precise title used may indicate rank within a religious house.
The Burrill maxim trap is the principal navigational hazard. See COMMON CONFUSION above.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three historical sources are in complete agreement. Black's (both editions) and Burrill define nonna identically: a nun in old ecclesiastical law, with nonnus as its masculine counterpart. All three attribute the term to Spelman — Henry Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum, the standard reference for medieval Latin terms in English legal use. No source adds depth on legal consequences of the status, capacity implications, or procedural significance. Researchers needing that context must look beyond the dictionary literature to canonical sources on the legal condition of professed religious in medieval English law.
Burrill is the most useful of the three for one reason only: it preserves the paired maxim, which — despite the confusion risk noted above — signals that Burrill was treating this portion of the "non-" entries comprehensively. The maxim itself (traceable to 12 Co. 7, Coke's Reports) is legitimate and well-sourced.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly corresponds to this term. Researchers may find relevant context under entries addressing ecclesiastical law, legal capacity, or medieval property law.