Definition
A Latin term meaning "to live." In the civil law tradition, *vivere* appears primarily in interpretive contexts where the law must determine what it means for a person to be living — particularly for purposes of inheritance, succession, and the legal capacity of persons. The Digest of Justinian addresses the interpretation of this word directly (Dig. 50.16.234.2), acknowledging that "living" is not always a simple factual question: the civil law recognized distinctions bearing on whether a posthumous child, a person in captivity, or one in uncertain circumstances could be considered *vivere* for legal purposes.
The term also appears as a root in the related French law phrase *viva voce* (from Latin *viva vox*, living voice), and in the old law French derivative *vivevoys* — the spoken testimony of a living witness, as distinguished from written instruments. These are related but distinct usages; *vivere* names the state of being alive, while the *viva* compounds describe things proceeding from living persons.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An Italian and Latin verb meaning "to live," familiar in English primarily through Italian opera, expressions of toast (*viva!*), and musical notation. Not in active English vocabulary as a standalone word.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not independently listed. Webster's 1913 treats related forms (*vivid*, *vivify*, *viva voce*) but does not define *vivere* as an English word.
The gap here is narrow but real: common exposure to the word is almost entirely through expressions of celebration or musical direction. The legal usage is technical and Latinate, concerned with the jurisprudential question of what "living" means for purposes of legal status and succession — a far more contested inquiry than the word's cheerful common associations suggest.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering *vivere* in historical legal texts are most likely working in one of two contexts: (1) civil law or Roman law materials discussing personal status, inheritance, and the capacity of persons, where the interpretive question of what constitutes "living" carries doctrinal weight; or (2) old law French materials where *vivevoys* or *vive voys* appears in contrast to written instruments (charters, deeds), and the concern is the evidentiary weight of oral testimony versus documentary proof.
For succession and inheritance research, the Digest reference at 50.16.234.2 is the anchor point. The civil law's treatment of *vivere* fed into questions that later common law addressed through different vocabulary — the born-alive rule, the question of survivorship in simultaneous death, and presumptions about death in absentia. Researchers tracing the history of these doctrines into early American or colonial law may find Roman law antecedents framed around *vivere* even when later cases use entirely different language.
For evidentiary research, the *vivevoys* usage is important precisely because it illustrates how old law French legal writing distinguished oral proof from written proof in the context of feudal conveyancing. The excerpt preserved in Burrill — concerning a charter of pure feoffment without condition, and whether oral testimony (*vivevoys*) could be received to prove a condition — reflects a foundational tension in early property law between the sanctity of the written deed and the admissibility of parol evidence. This is early material for what eventually crystallizes as the parol evidence rule.
The term itself will not appear in modern legal databases. Searches must be conducted in Latin legal dictionaries, civil law treatises, and digests of Roman law. Burrill is one of the few English-language law dictionaries to index it at all.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the only dictionary treatment identified in the Law Mind corpus. Burrill's entry is brief — essentially a gloss and a citation to the Digest — but the citation to Dig. 50.16.234.2 is substantively important. Digest Book 50, Title 16 (De verborum significatione — On the meaning of words) is itself a glossarial title, in which the Roman jurists addressed the proper interpretation of legally significant terms. The placement of *vivere* within that title signals that Roman legal practice recognized interpretive ambiguity in the word and required authoritative guidance.
Burrill's entry also serves as a bridge between the Latin *vivere* and the law French *vivevoys*, treating both within the same short notice. The quoted French passage (concerning feoffment, condition, and oral proof) is more illuminating than the Latin gloss itself, because it shows the term in active juridical use — not merely defined, but deployed in the resolution of a real doctrinal problem about the priority of written instruments over oral testimony.
No other major English-language legal dictionaries — not Bouvier, not Black's — appear to carry independent entries for *vivere* as a standalone term. Its absence from those sources reflects both the declining use of Roman law terminology in common law practice by the nineteenth century and the consolidation of the underlying doctrines under English and American vocabulary.
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Jurisdictional Note
The term is substantive primarily in civil law jurisdictions and in historical common law scholarship engaging Roman or canon law sources. In American and English law, the underlying questions *vivere* addressed in Roman doctrine migrated into rules governing survivorship, the born-alive rule, and the parol evidence rule — doctrines with their own jurisdictional variations that should be traced under those headings rather than under the Latin term.
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