Latin

An important language in the law; being the language not only of the civil and canon law, but of the early European codes, of much of the ancient common law of England and Scotland, and of a large proportion of the public, civil and maritime law of later times. The Code and Institutes exhibit the language in the periods of its decline and decay, and the Latin of most of the subsequent law belongs to that peculiar and technical dialect known as low Latin, or law Latin. The value of the Latin is in its superior conciseness which has made it the appropriate language of law maxims, and in its almost unlimited capacity of condensation by means of abbreviations and contractions, many of which are retained in popular use at the present day. LATINI JUNIANI (Lat.) In Roman law. A class of freedmen (libertini) intermediate between the two other classes of freedmen called, respectively, "Cives Romani" and "Dediticii." Slaves under thirty years of age at the date of their manumission, or manumitted otherwise than by vindicta, census, or testamentum, or not the quiritary property of their manumissors at the time of manumission, were called "Latini." By reason of one or other of these three defects, they remained slaves by strict law even after their manumission, but were protected in their liberties first by equity, and eventually by the Lex Junia Norbana, A. D. 19, from which law they took the name of "Juniani" in addition to that of "Latini." Brown. LATITAT (Lat. he lies hid.) In English law. The name of a writ calling a defendant to answer to a personal action in the king's bench. It derives its name from a supposition that the defendant lurks and lies hid, and cannot be found in the county of Middlesex (in which the said court is holden) to be taken there, but is gone into some other county, and therefore requiring the sheriff to apprehend him in such other county.

Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 78.