Definition
Appruamentum is a Latin term from old English law meaning approvement or improvement of land — specifically, the act by which a lord of a manor was permitted to enclose and convert to his own use portions of common or waste land, provided sufficient pasture remained for those with common rights over it. The term appears in medieval English records and pleadings to describe both the process of appropriating waste ground and the resulting improvement or productive use of that ground.
In its operative sense, appruamentum encompasses three related but distinct actions:
1. Improvement or approvement of land: The enclosure or productive development of waste or common land by the lord.
2. Appropriation: The act of setting apart or claiming land for exclusive use.
3. Improvement in the general sense: Enhancement of land value or productivity.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is exclusively a term of art in medieval and early modern English land law. Researchers will encounter it primarily in:
— Latin plea rolls, Chancery records, and judicial registers from the medieval and early Tudor periods, where it appears in formulaic phrases such as salvis appruamentis suis (saving to him his approvements).
— Records touching common rights, manorial courts, and enclosure disputes. Appruamentum is the Latin antecedent to the English term "approvement," and researchers working on enclosure history must understand the two as cognates.
— The Statute of Merton (1236) and the Statute of Westminster II (1285) are the foundational statutory authorities governing approvement in English law, though they use English or anglicized forms rather than the Latin appruamentum itself.
A key research trap: appruamentum is not the same as approvement in the sense of criminal law (the practice of an accomplice turning approver against confederates). The land-law meaning and the criminal-law meaning of "approvement" share a spelling in English sources but are entirely unrelated concepts. Misreading approvement in historical sources without checking context will produce errors.
Researchers should also note that appruamentum and appurtenance are easily confused when working from abbreviated or damaged manuscript sources. Burrill explicitly flags this: under a lease of a house, nothing passes under the name of appurtenances that does not genuinely belong to the premises — appruamentum refers to the act of improvement or appropriation, not to the appurtenant rights themselves.
The term drops out of common legal usage after the sixteenth century as English-language pleading displaced Latin forms. Post-seventeenth-century sources discussing approvement will use the anglicized term exclusively.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary authority in the Law Mind corpus for this term. Burrill traces appruamentum directly to Cowell's Interpreter, the standard early-modern glossary of law Latin, and supports the definition with a citation to the Registrum Judiciale (Reg. Jud. 8), a formulary of judicial writs. The illustrative phrase — salvis eidem R. appruamentis suis, meaning "saving to the said R. his approvements" — reflects the standard protective clause used in writs and conveyances to preserve a lord's right to make future improvements of waste.
Burrill identifies three meanings without fully distinguishing their relationship: (1) improvement or approvement as a formal legal act; (2) appropriation; and (3) improvement in a general or productive sense. These three are better understood as a spectrum of the same operative concept rather than discrete definitions. The core legal act is enclosure-and-improvement; appropriation and productivity are aspects of that act.
No other Law Mind shelf source carries a dedicated entry for appruamentum. Researchers requiring fuller treatment of the doctrine of approvement should consult Coke's commentary on manorial rights and the secondary literature on the Statutes of Merton and Westminster II.
Jurisdictional Note
Appruamentum is a term of English law only, rooted in the manorial system and the common-field agricultural regime of medieval England. It has no direct counterpart in Scots law, civil law, or American law. American researchers will not encounter it in domestic sources.