contemporanea expositio

English

Etymology

From Latin contemporanea expositio (“that which was said at the time”). Part of the expression contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima, in lege ("contemporaneous explanation is best and strongest in law").

Noun

contemporanea expositio (uncountable)

1. (law) Legal opinions set forth at the time a document was written.
   • 1856, Sir Robert Phillimore, Argument of Robert Phillimore in the Court of Arches: in the matter of the ornaments in the churches of St. Paul and St. Barnabas, Knightsbridge, page 141:

     We have the contemporanea expositio of Edward the Sixth, but what is the contemporanea expositio of Charles the Second ?

   • 1848, Clericus M.A., Cantab, pseud, The Church of England pronounced heretical, by the promoters of a petition against the consecration of dr. Hampden to the see of Hereford, page 44

     This is the contemporanea expositio which is to prove that the doctrine of the sacraments is not delivered fully in the Articles ; being in fact about a totally different question !

   • 1851, Edmund Burke, The Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year, page 186:

     This was the clear result of the 1st George I., taken in conjunction with the other statutes, and the contemporanea expositio confirmed this construction.

2. (law) The doctrine that the legal opinions of the time a document was written should be used to interpret laws in preference to more modern formulations.
   • 1832, The Law Magazine: Or, Quarterly Review of Jurisprudence, page 110:

     The contemporanea expositio is a safe key to the meaning of deeds, and in Evelyn's Memoirs, written fourteen years after the complete establishment of the Charter House, we have a striking illustration of the original rule as he understood it […]

   • 1910, The Scottish Law Reporter: Continuing Reports ... of Cases Decided in the Court of Session, Court of Justiciary, Court of Teinds, and House of Lords:

     Not only do I think that they must be read in conjunction, but the usage which has followed the Union has, in my judgment, both interpreted them when so read, and has by contemporanea expositio confirmed the view that they ought to be so read.

   • 1920, “Lord Advocate v. Marquess of Zetland”, in Cases Decided in the Court of Session, Court of Justiciary, &c.; Also in the House of Lords, page 3:

     It was reasonably clear upon the argument submitted in the Court of Session that, at the time when the Act came into force, it was regarded by contemporanea expositio as applying to the Crown, but any doubt which might have existed was set ...