Definition
To stay, remain, or abide in a place. A Latin term from medieval and early modern legal usage denoting physical presence or continuance at a particular location. It appears in formal pleading and procedural contexts where the fact of remaining in, or continuing to occupy, a place was legally significant — for instance, in matters touching residence, domicile, abode, or the duration of a party's presence within a jurisdiction.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a rare Latin procedural term with narrow appearance in the Anglo-American legal corpus. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in pre-nineteenth-century pleading records, ecclesiastical court documents, or learned legal treatises drawing on the civilian (Roman law) tradition. It does not appear to have survived into modern common law usage as a term of art, meaning its presence in a source document is itself a signal: the drafter was working within a civilian, canon law, or highly formalized Latin pleading tradition.
When tracing residency, domicile, or jurisdiction questions in historical sources, researchers should be alert to perindinare and its cognates appearing alongside terms like commorari (to sojourn or reside temporarily), manere (to remain), and habitare (to dwell). These terms were not always used interchangeably, and subtle distinctions between temporary sojourn, fixed abode, and legal domicile could turn on which verb a drafter chose.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is fragmentary as preserved, appearing alongside entries for PERIOD and PERICULUM. This suggests the term was treated as sufficiently established to warrant inclusion but was not assigned extended commentary, indicating it was known to practitioners without being a term of active litigation significance by the late nineteenth century. Researchers using Rapalje & Lawrence should note the truncation and not treat the available text as a complete entry.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence (1883) is the sole source dictionary available for this entry. The definition given — "to stay, remain, or abide in a place" — is concise and functional. No extended legal commentary accompanies it in the surviving text.
No entry for perindinare appears in Bouvier's Law Dictionary or Black's Law Dictionary in their standard editions, which reflects the term's marginal status in Anglo-American legal practice by the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Its natural home is in glossaries of medieval Latin, civil law digests, and canon law reference works rather than in common law dictionaries aimed at practitioner use.
The surrounding entries in Rapalje & Lawrence — PERICULUM (peril or danger, with the maxim perilous that which is not approved by the example of good men) and PERIOD (any portion or space of time) — confirm the alphabetical placement but offer no cross-illumination on this term's legal application.
Researchers requiring deeper historical treatment should consult Du Cange's Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, which remains the authoritative reference for medieval Latin legal vocabulary of this kind, and the relevant titles in the Corpus Juris Canonici tradition for ecclesiastical usage.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is not operative in any modern common law jurisdiction. Its significance is historical and confined to sources produced within civilian, canon law, or Latinate pleading traditions. Scottish, Irish, and English ecclesiastical court records are among the most likely venues for its appearance in English-language archival research.