Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "by the rule of the common law" or "according to the norm of the common law." Used in legal writing and pleading to signal that a rule, right, liability, or procedure derives from common law authority rather than from statute or equity. The phrase functions as a shorthand attribution, indicating that what follows or has just been stated rests on the general, unwritten law of the English legal tradition as received and developed by the courts.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in historical pleadings, writs, or legal treatises should treat it as a navigational marker pointing away from statutory sources and toward common law doctrine. When a historical document states that something holds *per norman legis com* (frequently abbreviated in manuscript sources as *per norm. leg. com.* or simply left as a gloss), the researcher's next step is to look to case law and common law treatises—Coke, Littleton, Blackstone—rather than to parliamentary acts or chancery practice.
The phrase appears most often in formal pleadings and early legal opinions where practitioners were required to ground their positions explicitly in a recognized body of law. Its presence in a document can help date or classify the source: heavy reliance on this kind of Latin attribution is characteristic of pre-nineteenth-century English and early American practice, before statutory codification reduced the need to distinguish common law from legislative authority at every turn.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should note that the abbreviation *leg. com.* can be confused with references to *lex communis* (the common law in a broader, sometimes Continental sense) or with abbreviated references to specific commentaries. Context will usually resolve the ambiguity, but cross-checking against the surrounding Latin or the document's jurisdictional provenance is advisable.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary records the entry tersely under *MUNIS*—a cross-reference structure that reflects Bouvier's occasional practice of grouping Latin phrases by their most distinctive or unusual word rather than by conventional alphabetical entry. The recorded gloss is simply "By the rule of the common law," which is accurate but provides no elaboration on usage, context, or scope.
The brevity is notable. Bouvier does not indicate whether the phrase appears in pleading, judicial opinions, or treatise writing, nor does he distinguish it from functionally similar phrases such as *de communi lege* or *secundum legem communem*, both of which carry equivalent meaning in different formal contexts. Researchers relying solely on Bouvier for this term will have its meaning confirmed but will receive no guidance on its practical application or on the range of variant forms in which it appears across historical sources.
No other source dictionary in the current Law Mind corpus provides a dedicated entry for this phrase. The omission from Black's and other standard dictionaries likely reflects the term's role as a stock Latin attribution rather than a term of art with independent doctrinal content—it describes the source of a rule rather than constituting a rule itself.
Jurisdictional Note
The phrase is rooted in English common law tradition and carries that meaning in English and early American legal sources. In American practice after the Revolution, references to the common law as a governing baseline became more complicated, as states adopted the common law selectively and with varying modifications. A document invoking *per norman legis com* in an American context after the late eighteenth century should be read with attention to whether the relevant state had received the English common law and, if so, to what date of reception.