Legal Term Dictionary

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  • DECRETALS
    In ecclesiastical law. Letters of the pope, written at the suit or instance of one or more persons, determining some point or question in ecclesiastical law, and possessing the force of law. The decretals form the second part of the body of canon law. This is also the title of More...
  • DECRETO
    In Spanish colonial law. An order emanating from some superior tribunal, promulgated in the name and by the authority of the sovereign, in relation to ecclesiastical matters. Schm. Civil Law, 93, note.
  • DECRETUM
    In the civil law. A species of imperial constitution, being a-judgment or sentence given by the emperor upon hearing of a cause, (quod imperator coo-noscens decrevit.) Inst. 1, 2, 6. In canon law. An ecclesiastical law, in contradistinction to a secular law, (lex.) 1 Mackeld. Civil Law, p. 81, ? More...
  • DECRETUM GRATIANI
    Gratian's decree, or decretum. A collection of ecclesiastical law in three books or parts, made in the year 1151, by Gratian, a Benedictine monk of Bologna, being the oldest as well as the first in order of the collections which together form the body of the Roman canon law. 1 More...
  • DECROWNING
    The act of depriving of a crown.
  • DECRY
    To cry down; to deprive of credit "The king may at any time decry or cry down any coin of the kingdom, and make it no longer current!' 1 Bl. Comm. 278.
  • DECURIO
    Lat A decurion. In the provincial administration of the Roman empire, the decurions were the chief men or official personages of the large towns. Taken as a body, the decurions of a city were charged with the entire control and administration of its internal affairs; having powers both magisterial and More...
  • DEDBANA
    In Saxon law. An actual homicide or manslaughter.
  • DEDI
    (Lat l have given.) A word used in deeds and other instruments of conveyance when such Instruments were made in Latin, and anciently held to imply a warranty of title. Deakins v. Ilollis, 7 Gill A J. (Md.) 315.
  • DEDI ET CONCESSI
    I have given and granted. The operative words of conveyance in ancient charters of feoffment, and deeds of gift and grant; the English "given and granted" being still the most proper, though not the essential, words by which such conveyances are made. 2 Bl. Comm. 53, 316, 317; 1 Steph. More...
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