inventarium

Inventarium is a Latin noun meaning a detailed list of goods, possessions, or a catalog. It is used in Latin and scholarly contexts to refer to inventories compiled for legal, administrative, or scholarly purposes. The form is used in historical documents and often appears in translations as inventory or catalogue of contents. The term is used in plural as inventaria.

Historical usage: In medieval and early modern Europe, inventarium documents accompanied wills, probate proceedings, and estate administration. These inventories documented land, houses, livestock, movables, debts, and obligations. Technically produced by notaries, scribes, or officials, they served taxation, inheritance, and property transfer. They reveal social and economic conditions and can be valuable primary sources for researchers.

Other uses: In botany, archaeology, or library science, inventarium can denote catalogues or comprehensive lists of items in a collection, such as a monastery library inventory or a natural history cabinet. Some institutions have used Inventarium as a formal title for catalogues of their holdings. In modern English usage, the term has largely given way to inventory, inventory list, or catalogue, while Latin forms persist in academic references.

See also: Inventory, Catalogue, Estate inventory, Probate, Library catalog.