Definition
Per vivam vocem (Latin: "by the living voice") is a Latin phrase used in old English law to denote testimony or communication delivered orally, in person, by a living speaker. It is equivalent in meaning to viva voce — the more familiar Latin phrase that survived into modern legal usage — and refers to the mode of giving evidence or making a statement by word of mouth rather than in writing.
The phrase appears primarily in medieval English legal texts, most notably in Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, and is not a term of art with independent operative legal effect. It describes a method of proceeding rather than a substantive legal concept.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No entry. The phrase has no current general usage in English outside legal and ecclesiastical Latin contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered. The component words — vivam (living) and vocem (voice) — would have been understood by educated Latin readers, but the compound phrase was confined to legal and scholarly discourse.
Editorial note: Because this phrase has no foothold in ordinary English at any period, there is no meaningful gap between common and legal meaning to navigate. It is pure legal Latin with a single, narrow referent.
Common Confusion
Per vivam vocem and viva voce are functionally identical in meaning. The confusion worth noting is directional: researchers encountering per vivam vocem in a historical source may not immediately recognize it as a variant of the more familiar viva voce, and may search for it as though it were a distinct doctrine. It is not. The two phrases point to the same concept — oral, spoken testimony or communication — and per vivam vocem is simply the less durable formulation, appearing predominantly in Bracton-era sources and disappearing from active legal vocabulary as viva voce became the standard term.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is a navigational hazard in medieval and early common law sources. A researcher working in Bracton, or in texts that follow Bracton closely, will encounter per vivam vocem where later sources would say viva voce. Failure to recognize the equivalence can produce a false impression of doctrinal distinctness or lead a researcher to treat the phrase as an unresolved term requiring separate analysis.
The practical research implication: when searching historical corpus materials for oral testimony doctrine, oral pleading procedure, or the distinction between written and spoken evidence in early English practice, both per vivam vocem and viva voce should be included in search strings. Relying on viva voce alone will miss Bracton-era usage.
The phrase also appears in sources citing Bracton fol. 95 as the authority, so that folio is the natural destination for anyone wishing to examine the original context. Sources that cite the phrase without that folio reference are typically derivative.
No American or modern common law jurisdiction uses per vivam vocem as an operative term. Its life in legal literature is entirely historical and confined to the early English period.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement: both define per vivam vocem as equivalent to viva voce and both cite Bracton fol. 95 as the source authority. Neither dictionary attributes independent doctrinal significance to the phrase beyond this equivalence.
Burrill's entry is marginally more informative in context, appearing alongside the related entry for PER, CUI, and POST — the Latin descriptors used to classify different degrees of writs of entry — which situates per vivam vocem within the broader taxonomy of Latin procedural phrases in old English practice. This placement is useful for researchers who encounter the phrase in procedural rather than evidentiary contexts.
Neither dictionary traces the phrase beyond Bracton, and neither addresses whether the phrase carried any nuance distinct from viva voce in its original usage. Historical sources are silent on any meaningful divergence between the two formulations.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Viva Voce; Oral Testimony in Early English Practice; Bracton and the Common Law.