PECUNIA

4 definitions found across Law Mind sources

← Dictionary
PECUNIAAuthored
The Law Mind • 1099 words
Definition
A Latin term drawn from Roman law and appearing in medieval English legal texts with a range of meanings that narrowed over time. Modern legal usage preserves it almost exclusively in the specialized sense of money or monetary consideration, but the classical and civil law senses were considerably broader: 1. In its oldest and most radical sense: property in cattle, or cattle themselves. The wealth of early Roman society was measured in livestock, and the word carried that agrarian origin into legal texts long after the underlying economic reality had shifted. 2. In the civil law (broader sense): property in general — real or personal — constituting anything that is actually the subject of private ownership. Under this usage, pecunia encompassed the full scope of a person's patrimonial estate. 3. In a narrower civil law sense: personal property and fungible things — goods that can be weighed, counted, or measured and replaced by an equivalent. 4. In the strictest and most prevalent modern sense: money. This last meaning came to dominate both civilian and common law usage and is the sense most frequently encountered in modern legal texts, maxims, and statutory materials.
Common Language
Wiktionary: "Pecunia" is noted as a Latin word meaning money, occasionally borrowed into English in formal or literary contexts to mean money or wealth. Webster's 1913: Not listed as an English headword; treated as a Latin term adopted into legal and scholarly writing, carrying the sense of money or property. The gap here is not between legal and common English meaning but between the single sense most readers bring to the word — money — and the layered, historically evolving meanings the term carried in Roman law and early English legal writing. A researcher encountering pecunia in a medieval English legal record may be reading about cattle, not currency.
Common Confusion
Pecunia is sometimes confused with peculium, a related but distinct Roman law concept referring to a separate fund or allowance granted by a paterfamilias to a son, slave, or dependent for their quasi-independent management. The two terms share a root and appear in proximity in civil law texts, but peculium denotes a particular allocation of property within a household legal structure, not property or money in the general sense. Bouvier's entries for the two terms bleed into each other in some printed editions, compounding the confusion for researchers working with historical sources.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with Roman law sources, civil law treatises, or early English common law materials must pay close attention to the era and context of any document using pecunia, because the operative meaning shifts substantially across time and legal tradition. In early English records — particularly manorial documents, surveys, and agrarian legal instruments — pecunia retains its cattle sense. Burrill cites the phrase pastura ad pecuniam villae (pasture for the cattle of the town) as a live usage in old English law, demonstrating that the livestock meaning persisted in practice well after it had faded from civilian doctrine. A researcher reading such a phrase as "money of the town" would fundamentally misread the document. In civil law treatises and mixed common law/equity contexts, pecunia typically operates in the broader property sense or the fungibles sense, depending on the argument being constructed. Whether a legacy of pecunia in a will passed real property, personal property, or only liquid assets was a genuine interpretive dispute in both Roman and early modern legal systems. By the time pecunia appears in modern legal maxims — such as pecunia non olet (money does not stink) or in the ecclesiastical law principle that spiritual offices cannot be sold for pecunia — the strictly monetary sense prevails. The term also signals civil law influence. Its appearance in a document, particularly alongside peculium, actio, or dominium, is a reliable indicator that the drafter was working within or borrowing from a civilian tradition, which carries implications for interpretive methodology.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Burrill are in close agreement on the etymological and historical progression: cattle → general property → personal/fungible property → money. Both cite Co. Litt. 207b for the cattle origin. This citation to Coke on Littleton is reliable and traceable. Burrill is the most useful of the shelf sources for the English law dimension, explicitly noting that the cattle sense "very distinctly occurs in old English law" and providing a documentary example. Black's states the same historical point but without the grounding example, making Burrill the better starting reference for researchers working with early English materials. Bouvier's entry, as it appears in the source material, pivots mid-discussion into peculium without clearly demarcating the boundary between terms. This is a known artifact of how Bouvier's is structured around interconnected civilian concepts, but it creates a navigation hazard: a researcher following the pecunia entry may find themselves reading about a son's adventitious property before realizing the discussion has shifted to a different legal concept. All four dictionaries agree that the monetary sense is the prevalent and practically dominant meaning by the time of their writing. None fully develops the implications of the term's earlier meanings for documentary research, which is where Burrill's example fills a gap the others leave open.
Jurisdictional Note
Pecunia as an operative legal term is essentially a civil law and historical common law concept. In modern common law jurisdictions it appears almost exclusively in Latin maxims, historical quotation, and scholarly commentary rather than in operative statutory or doctrinal language. Civil law jurisdictions with Roman law roots may use equivalent vernacular terms derived from pecunia but rarely the Latin form itself in contemporary instruments.
Related Terms
Peculium — related Roman law concept; property allocated to a dependent within a household structure Fungibles — the category of property most closely associated with the narrower civil law sense of pecunia Patrimonium — the full estate of a Roman law person; broader than pecunia in its general property sense Money — the modern English equivalent of pecunia in its strictest sense Pecuniary — the English adjective derived from pecunia; used in modern law to mean relating to or consisting of money Property — the broader concept pecunia once encompassed in civil law usage Res — Roman law term for thing or property; often appears alongside pecunia in civilian texts Bona — Latin for goods or property; partial synonym for pecunia in its broader civil law sense Peculium adventitium — the specific subtype of peculium discussed in Bouvier's in proximity to pecunia entries
PECUNIAmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
Lat. Originally and radi- cally, property in cattle, or cattle themselves. So called because the wealth of the ancients consisted in cattle. Co. Litt. 2076. In the civil law. Property in general, real or personal; anything that is actually the subject of private property. In a nar- rower sense, personal property; fungible things. In the strictest sense, money. This has become the prevalent, and almost the ex- clusive, meaning of the word. In old English law. Goods and chat- tels. Spelman.
PECUNIAmain
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910
Lat. Originally and radically, property in cattle, or cattle themselves. So called because the wealth of the ancients consisted in cattle. Co. Litt. 207). In the civil law. Property in general, real or personal; anything that is actually the subject of private property. In a narrower sense, personal property; ‘ fungible things. In the strictest sense, money. This has become the prevalent, and almost the exclusive, meaning of the word. In old English law. Goods and chattels. Spelman. —Pecunia constituta. In Roman law. Money owing (even upon a moral obligation) upon a day being fixed (constituta) for its payment. became recoverable upon the implied promise to pay on that day, in an action called “de pecunia constituta,” the implied promise not amounting (of course) to a stipulatto. Brown. —Pec non mumerata. In the civil] law. Money not paid. The subject of an exception or plea in certain cases. Inst. 4, 13, 2.—Pecuenia mumerata. Money numbered or counted gut; 4. e.. given in payment of a debt.-Pecunia sepulchralis. Money anciently paid to the po at the opening of a grave for the good of the deceased’s soul.—Pec trajectitia. In the civil law. A loan in money, or in wares which the debtor purchases with the money to be sent by sea, and whereby the creditor, according to the contract, assumes the risk of the loss from the day of the departure of the vessel till the day of her arrival at her port of destination. Interest does not necessarily arise from this loan, but when is stipulated for it is termed “nauticum fenus,” (maritime interest,) and, because of the risk which the creditor assumes, he is permitted to receive a higher interest than usual. Mackeld. Rom. Law, § 433 Pecunia dicitur a pecus, omnes enim weterum divwitis in animalibus consistebant. Co. Litt. 207. Money (pecunia) is so called from cattle, (pecus.) because all the wealth of our ancestors consisted in cattle.
PECUNIAmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
a son by performing the duties of a public or spirit- ual office or of an advocate, and also gifts from the reigning prince; peculium adventitium, which in- cludes the property of a son's mother and relatives on that side of the house, and all which comes to him on a second marriage of his parents, and, in general, all his acquisitions which do not come from his father's property and do not come under cas- trense or quasi-castrense peculium. The peculium profectitium remains the property of the father. The peculium castrense and quasi- castrense are entirely the property of the son. The peculium adventitium belongs to the son; but he cannot alien it nor dispose of it by will; nor can the father, unless under peculiar circumstances, alien it without consent of the son. Mackeldey, Civ. Law, 557; Inst 2. 9. 1; Dig. 15. 1. 5. 8; Pothier, ad Pand. lib. 50, tit. 17, c. 2, art. 8. A master is not entitled to the extraor- dinary earnings of his apprentices which do not interfere with his services so as to affect the master's profits. An apprentice was therefore decreed to be entitled to salvage, in opposition to his master's claim for it. 2 Cra. 270. See MANUS MARRIAGE. PECUNIA (Lat.). In Civil Law. Property, real or personal, corporeal or in- corporeal. Things in general (omnes res). The law of the Twelve Tables said, uti quisque pater familias legasset super pecunia tutelave rei suæ ita jus esto: in whatever manner a father of a family may have disposed of his property or of the tutorship of his things, let this disposition be law. 1 Lecons Elém. du Dr. Civ. Rom. 288. But Paulus, in 1. 5, D. de verb. signif., gives it a narrower sense than res, which he says means what is not included within patrimony, pecunia what is. Vicat, Voc. Jur. In a still narrower sense, it means those things only which have measure, weight, and number, and most usually strictly money. Id. The general sense of property occurs, aiso, in the old English law. Leg. Edw. Confess. c. 10. Flocks were the first riches of the ancients; and it is from pecus that the words pecunia, peculium, peculatus, are derived. In old English law pecunia often retains the force of pecus. So often in Domes- day: pastura ibidem pecuniæ villæ, i. e. pasture for cattle of the village. So viva pecunia, live stock. Leg. Edw. Confess. c. 10; Emendat. Willielmi Primi ad Leges Edw. Confess.; Cowell.

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

SubscribeEncyclopediaSign In
The Law Mind Legal Dictionary. This is a legal research library, not a lawyer.
Dictionary • Encyclopedia • Sign In