Definition
The award or decision rendered by arbitrators upon a dispute that has been submitted to them for resolution. The term refers both to the process of arbitral decision-making and, more precisely, to the binding determination that results from it. In historical usage, arbitrament denotes the final product of arbitration — the authoritative settlement of a controversy by persons chosen or agreed upon by the parties, operating outside ordinary judicial proceedings.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The judgement of an arbiter or arbitrator; an arbitration.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Determination; decision; arbitration. Used broadly to mean any authoritative or final determination, including figurative uses: "The arbitrament of time." Also defined as the award of arbitrators specifically.
The gap between common and legal meaning is modest but real. In ordinary historical English, arbitrament extended to any decisive judgment — fate, time, or personal combat could all render an "arbitrament." Legal usage is narrower and more formal: arbitrament refers specifically to the output of an arbitral proceeding, not merely any authoritative decision. Researchers reading 17th- or 18th-century legal sources should be alert to this distinction, particularly when the term appears in non-procedural contexts.
Common Confusion
Arbitrament is often used interchangeably with award and arbitration, but the terms carry distinct technical weight in historical sources. Arbitration names the process; award names the written instrument embodying the arbitrators' decision; arbitrament denotes the decision itself — the substantive determination made by the arbitrators. In practice, older sources frequently elide these distinctions. The paired phrase "arbitrament and award," which appears as a formal plea in early common law procedure, reflects an era when courts distinguished between the act of deciding and the formalized document recording that decision.
Why It Matters in Research
Arbitrament is primarily a historical term. Modern American and English legal practice uses award for the arbitrators' decision and arbitration for the proceeding. Researchers encountering arbitrament in sources from the 17th through 19th centuries should treat it as a marker of classical arbitral vocabulary and read it in context: it may refer to the decision itself, to the binding force of that decision, or loosely to the arbitration process as a whole.
The plea of arbitrament and award is the most consequential procedural appearance of this term. It was a common law plea in bar — asserted as a defense to a new action on the same claim, on the ground that the dispute had already been submitted to arbitrators and an award rendered. Researchers working in early pleading records or common law reporters will encounter it in this defensive posture. The plea required proof both of the submission agreement and of the actual award; failure of either element defeated the defense.
The maxim Arbitramentum æquum tribuit cuique suum — a just arbitration renders to every one his own — appears in Noy's Maxims and recurs in early commentary on arbitral authority. It signals the equitable foundation on which arbitrament was understood to rest: arbitrators were bound to do justice between the parties, not merely to split differences mechanically.
For corpus researchers, this term functions as a chronological signal. Its frequency peaks in English legal sources from the 16th through 18th centuries and declines sharply in American practice after the mid-19th century as statutory arbitration frameworks standardized vocabulary around award and arbitration. Finding arbitrament in a later source may indicate borrowing from older authority, conservative drafting, or an English precedent being cited.
Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary define arbitrament identically: the award or decision of arbitrators upon a submitted dispute, citing Termes de la Ley as authority. The 2nd edition adds the plea of arbitrament and award with a citation to Watson on Arbitration (Wats. Arb. 256) and includes the Noy maxim. This editorial expansion between editions reflects the 2nd edition's broader treatment of procedural applications, not a substantive change in meaning.
Neither edition addresses the term's decline in practice or flags it as archaic, which it functionally was even by the time Black's was first published (1891). Researchers should not take Black's silence on obsolescence as confirmation that the term was still in active use.
Webster's 1913 captures the common-language breadth that the legal dictionaries suppress, helpfully preserving figurative uses that illuminate period texts. The Cowell definition Webster's cites ("the award of arbitrators") aligns directly with Black's, confirming that the legal meaning had stabilized well before the 19th century.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Arbitration — Historical Foundations; Pleading in Bar.