Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "Know all men by these presents." It served as the formal opening clause of deeds of release and other formal legal instruments, functioning as a public declaration that the document was addressed to all persons generally, not merely named parties. The phrase directed that anyone who encountered the instrument should take notice of its contents and legal effect.
The words "per praesentes" — "by these presents" — refer to the document itself, a convention that survives in modern English legal drafting in the abbreviated form "know all men by these presents" or simply "by these presents."
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Common Language
This is Latin legal formulary with no meaningful counterpart in ordinary modern English. The phrase survives in attenuated form in formal deed language ("by these presents"), but the full Latin opening is not used in contemporary drafting. No Wiktionary or Webster's 1913 entry applies. Section omitted.
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Common Confusion
The phrase is sometimes loosely treated as interchangeable with "know all men by these presents," which is its English translation, not a synonym of equal formality. In historical instruments, the Latin form signals a document drafted under earlier common law conventions — typically pre-18th century — whereas the English equivalent appears more frequently in later practice and in American instruments after independence. Treating the two as identical can cause researchers to overlook dating and jurisdictional cues embedded in the choice of language.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in historical documents should treat it as a dating and form signal. The Latin version — *Noverint Universi per Praesentes* — is a strong indicator of an instrument drafted in English common law practice prior to the gradual displacement of Latin from legal instruments, a process substantially advanced in England by the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730 (which mandated English in court records) and effectively complete in most American jurisdictions by the early national period.
The phrase appears at the head of deeds of release, bonds, letters of attorney, and similar formal conveyancing instruments. When you find it in a corpus document, look for the following features: a grantor-grantee structure, recitals of consideration, and a habendum clause. Its presence confirms you are reading an operative instrument, not a pleading or judicial record.
Traps for researchers: The corrupted spellings common in transcribed historical documents (as reflected in the submitted term here) mean that keyword searches for this phrase may miss variant renderings. Search strategies should include both the Latin and English forms, common scribal abbreviations, and phonetic variants introduced by later copyists unfamiliar with Latin.
The phrase also signals that the instrument was likely executed under seal, which carries legal significance for limitations periods, enforceability of consideration, and related doctrines that varied between sealed and unsealed instruments — a distinction that mattered enormously in historical common law but has been largely abolished in modern American practice.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed., Supplemental) defines the phrase tersely as "Know all men by these presents. Formal words used at the commencement of deeds of release in the Latin forms." This is accurate so far as it goes but understates the breadth of instruments in which the phrase appeared. It was not confined to releases; it opened bonds, powers of attorney, and other formal deeds generally. The narrow reference to "deeds of release" likely reflects the source's focus on conveyancing practice.
No other shelf sources in the available corpus provide entries for this phrase. Historical legal dictionaries of the English tradition — Termes de la Ley, Cowell's Interpreter, Jacob's Law Dictionary — address Latin formulae of this kind in varying depth, and researchers working with pre-18th century instruments would benefit from consulting those works for context the Black's entry does not supply.
The phrase illustrates a broader category of what legal historians call "formal words" or "words of style" — fixed phrases whose precise form was required for an instrument's validity or recognition. Understanding that *Noverint Universi per Praesentes* belonged to this category explains why it appears verbatim across centuries of documents: variation was not a matter of scribal preference but a legal risk.
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Jurisdictional Note
The Latin form is associated with English common law practice and appears in instruments from England, the American colonies, and early American states. After the Revolution, American drafting practice shifted rapidly toward English equivalents, and the Latin phrase had largely disappeared from American instruments by the early 19th century. Researchers working with civil law jurisdictions will not encounter this phrase in equivalent instruments from those traditions.
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