Definition
A Latin maxim term meaning "to be valid," "to have force or effect," or "to be operative in law." In legal usage, *valere* expresses the quality of an instrument, act, or legal provision that gives it binding power and legal consequence. A document, clause, or transaction that *valere* — that "avails" or "holds good" — is one the law recognizes as effective and enforceable. The term also carries a secondary sense: "to be of value" or "to be worth," appearing in valuation contexts related to worth or price.
The term appears most often not in isolation but as the root of compound maxims and Latin phrases that courts and treatise writers employed to reason about legal validity and construction.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): *Valere* has no standard modern English entry as an independent word; it survives in English derivatives such as "valid," "valor," "value," and "prevail," all tracing to the Latin root meaning strength or worth.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as an English term. The Latin root *valere* was understood by educated readers through its English cognates: "valid" (having legal strength), "value" (worth), and "avail" (to be of use or benefit).
The gap matters to researchers because the ordinary English words descended from *valere* — "valid," "value," "avail" — each capture only part of the Latin term's legal range. In legal Latin, *valere* unified what English has since split into distinct concepts: enforceability, monetary worth, and practical effect. A historical source using *valere* may be speaking to any or all of these dimensions simultaneously.
Common Confusion
*Valere* in its validity sense (operative legal force) should not be collapsed with *valere* in its valuation sense (monetary worth). Historical sources sometimes move between these meanings without explicit signal. The compound *perinde valere* — meaning "to be of the same force or effect" — belongs firmly to the validity register, while references to *valentia* and *valor* draw on the worth-and-price register. Researchers treating all instances of *valere* as purely about monetary value will misread validity arguments, and vice versa.
Why It Matters in Research
*Valere* is an indexical term: it rarely appears as a standalone concept but instead anchors a family of Latin maxims that researchers encounter throughout pre-twentieth-century legal literature. Understanding *valere* as the root unlocks navigation across several related entries and doctrines.
The most important connected phrase is *perinde valere*, which expressed equivalence of legal effect — that one instrument or act should be treated as having the same force as another. This construction appears in ecclesiastical, civil, and common law sources and requires attention to context to identify which legal system's notion of "force" is being invoked.
Researchers working in historical sources — particularly treatises, Yearbooks, and equity pleadings — should expect *valere* to appear in arguments about whether a deed, will, contract, or statute "avails" the party claiming under it. The question "does this instrument *valere*?" is structurally equivalent to the modern question "is this instrument valid and enforceable?" but the older sources do not always separate out sub-questions (capacity, formality, consideration, legality) the way modern doctrine does.
The secondary valuation sense connects *valere* to *valor* and *valentia* — terms appearing in assessments of land, goods, and damages. Researchers in property history, tax records, and feudal tenure materials will encounter all three terms in proximity. Burrill cross-references these deliberately, and researchers should follow the chain.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary historical source covering this term in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill's entry is compact but structurally rich: it identifies both the validity sense and the worth sense, anchors the term with a citation to Fleta (the thirteenth-century English legal treatise), and points forward to the compound maxims *valeat quantum* and *perinde valere* as well as to the related noun entries *valentia* and *valor*. This cross-referencing pattern reflects Burrill's method of treating Latin roots as conceptual hubs rather than isolated entries.
What Burrill does not do — and what historical dictionaries generally do not do — is distinguish the civil law and common law deployments of *valere*. In Roman and canon law sources, *valere* carried technical weight tied to those systems' formal validity requirements. In common law sources, the same word was deployed more loosely to argue enforceability as a practical matter. Researchers should not assume uniform meaning across legal traditions simply because the Latin term is identical.
No other Law Mind shelf source independently defines *valere*, making Burrill the baseline reference and Fleta the primary documentary anchor for the term's appearance in English legal literature.
Jurisdictional Note
As a Latin maxim root, *valere* is not jurisdiction-specific in its documentary footprint, but its application varied by legal system. Civil law jurisdictions (and ecclesiastical courts) gave the term more formal doctrinal weight tied to structured validity requirements. Common law courts used *valere* and its derivative phrases instrumentally, in argument rather than as fixed doctrine. Researchers should calibrate accordingly when moving between source types.