Definition
A Latin verb meaning "to go." In legal usage, *vadere* appears almost exclusively in the compound phrase *contra mentem vadere* — literally, "to go against the mind" — which the old common law sources applied to persons who knowingly uttered falsehood or swore falsely. The phrase captures the idea that a liar or perjurer acts in deliberate contradiction of what the mind or conscience knows to be true.
Why It Matters in Research
*Vadere* is not a standalone legal term of art but a Latin root that surfaces in older English and continental legal texts, most significantly in Bracton. Researchers encountering the phrase *contra mentem vadere* in medieval or early modern sources should understand it as a moral and theological framing of perjury — an emphasis on the knowing, willful quality of the false statement — rather than a technical legal standard with procedural consequences. The phrase belongs to the descriptive and rhetorical vocabulary of Bracton's *De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae* rather than to the operational language of a pleading or statute.
Because *vadere* itself is unremarkable Latin, keyword searches in digitized historical corpora will generate considerable noise from non-legal contexts. Researchers should search for the full phrase *contra mentem vadere* or the complete Bracton passage (*se pejerant, quia contra mentem vadunt*) to locate relevant material. The term is unlikely to appear in post-medieval English legal sources except as a quotation from or gloss on Bracton.
The broader conceptual territory — the willfulness element in perjury, the distinction between honest mistake and deliberate falsehood — has extensive treatment in later statutory and common law perjury doctrine, but under entirely different terminology. *Vadere* and its compound phrase did not survive as living legal vocabulary into the modern period.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the primary shelf source treating this term, and its entry is essentially complete for the term's legal function: a brief definitional gloss on the Latin, followed by the phrase *contra mentem vadere* with an explanatory sentence, and a direct quotation from Bracton (fol. 288b). Burrill correctly situates the phrase as belonging to "the old books" — recognizing that by the nineteenth century this was antiquarian rather than operative vocabulary.
No other standard historical law dictionaries (Bouvier, Black, Jacob, Cowell) appear to carry independent entries for *vadere*, which confirms its status as a term preserved mainly through Bracton scholarship rather than through continuous legal practice. Researchers should treat the Burrill entry as a pointer to Bracton rather than as evidence of broader common law usage.
The Bracton passage cited — folio 288b — addresses perjury in the context of oaths, and the moral framing (*contra mentem vadunt*) reflects the ecclesiastical and Roman law influences that shaped Bracton's treatment of oath-breaking. This is consistent with the mixed civilian and canonical character of Bracton's analysis throughout the *De Legibus*.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Perjury; Bracton and the Common Law Tradition