Definition
A Latin term drawn from Roman civil law carrying two closely related but distinct meanings:
1. To testify, attest, or bear witness — to formally declare or make known a thing before witnesses, lending public authority to a statement or act through the presence of those who can confirm it.
2. To make a will — to execute a testamentary instrument, reflecting the ancient Roman understanding that will-making was itself a witnessed, declaratory act performed before an assembly or other witnesses.
Both meanings flow from the same root concept: the giving of solemn, witnessed declaration. The act of testifying and the act of making a will were, in Roman legal culture, understood as expressions of the same formal, public, witnessed affirmation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No standard entry. "Testify" (the anglicized derivative) means to give sworn evidence, especially before a court or official body.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry for testari. "Testify" is defined as to make solemn declaration of fact or truth; to give testimony.
The gap here is one of formalism and scope. In common English, testifying is primarily a courtroom act. In its Roman civil law usage, testari encompassed any solemn public declaration — including the making of a will — wherever witnesses were formally assembled. The legal meaning is broader and procedurally embedded in a way the ordinary English derivative does not capture.
Why It Matters in Research
Testari appears almost exclusively in Latin-language legal texts, Roman law treatises, and works of civil and canon law scholarship. Researchers are most likely to encounter it in:
— Glossaries and maxims appended to early common law treatises drawing on Roman sources
— Works on testamentary law tracing the history of will-making from Roman practice
— Civil law dictionaries and compilations, particularly those engaging with Justinianic sources
The dual meaning is the primary navigational trap. When testari appears in a historical source discussing inheritance or succession, it almost certainly means "to make a will." When it appears in evidentiary or procedural contexts, it carries the testimonial meaning. Conflating the two will mislead research into either testamentary history or the law of evidence.
Researchers working on the history of wills and testament formalities should note that the connection between testari and testamentum is not merely etymological — it reflects a substantive Roman legal requirement that will-making be a public, witnessed act. This background is essential context for understanding why early common law and ecclesiastical courts placed such weight on formal execution requirements for wills.
The term also provides a thread connecting Roman civil law to canon law development, as ecclesiastical courts in England held jurisdiction over wills and testaments for centuries. Sources in that tradition will occasionally reach back to civil law vocabulary including testari when explaining the theoretical foundations of testamentary formality.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) give identical entries, suggesting the second edition carried the first forward without revision. Both cite Calvin — a reference to Johannes Calvinus's Lexicon Juridicum (1600), a major civil law dictionary that was a standard reference for Romanist legal vocabulary. Neither Black's edition elaborates beyond the bare dual definition.
Burrill's Law Dictionary begins the same definition but the surviving text breaks off mid-entry ("to declare, publish or make"), leaving the entry incomplete. Burrill does, however, correctly trace the term to testis (witness), which illuminates the conceptual unity underlying both meanings: both testifying and will-making are acts that require and invoke the witness.
No major historical dictionary entry goes beyond this skeletal treatment. None connects testari to its procedural context in Roman law — the comitia calata (assembly before which early Roman wills were made) or the later praetorian and Justinianic evolution of testamentary formalities. Researchers needing that depth must go beyond the dictionary shelf to civil law treatises directly.