Definition
A Latin adverbial phrase meaning "in truth" or "in fact." Used in medieval and early modern legal Latin to assert the actual or factual character of something, as distinguished from its nominal, formal, or legal character. It functions as an intensifier, emphasizing that what is described is genuinely the case in reality rather than merely in form or legal fiction.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *revera* in Latin legal texts, particularly medieval English sources such as Fleta or Bracton, should treat it as a signal that the author is drawing a contrast between formal legal status and underlying factual reality. This distinction mattered acutely in medieval jurisprudence, where legal fictions were common and the difference between what something was *called* and what it *actually was* carried real doctrinal weight.
Because *revera* appears almost exclusively in Latin-language primary sources and early treatises, it is largely absent from post-medieval English case law. Researchers working in translated editions of Fleta or similar works should note that translators render the phrase inconsistently — sometimes as "in truth," sometimes as "in fact," and occasionally as "truly" or "really" — which can obscure the rhetorical function the phrase was performing in the original. When consulting untranslated Latin texts, recognizing the phrase prevents misreading the surrounding passage as purely descriptive when the author is instead making a pointed distinction between appearance and reality.
The phrase has no surviving technical legal definition in the common law tradition beyond its use as a Latin intensifier. It does not name a doctrine, a form of action, or a procedural concept, and should not be treated as such.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary gives a spare but accurate account: "In truth; in fact," citing Fleta, lib. 2, c. 60, § 21. The entry does not expand on the phrase's function, treating it as self-explanatory to a readership presumed to work in Latin. No other major historical law dictionaries — not Jacob's, Tomlin's, or Black's early editions — carry a dedicated entry for *revera*, reflecting that the phrase was considered transparent Latin rather than a term of legal art requiring separate definition.
Burrill's citation to Fleta is the one concrete anchor available. Fleta, the late thirteenth-century English legal treatise written in imitation of Bracton, uses Latin extensively and with the kind of scholastic precision that makes adverbial qualifiers like *revera* functionally meaningful rather than ornamental. The specific citation (lib. 2, c. 60, § 21) places the term in Fleta's treatment of substantive legal relationships, consistent with the phrase's role in flagging factual as opposed to formal legal reality.