Definition
A Latin term from old English legal practice meaning "awarded" or "adjudged." It appears in formal Latin pleading and record language to describe the act of arbitrators rendering a decision — that is, having made their award. The term is the past participle of *arbitrari*, and in legal instruments it typically signals that arbitrators have concluded their deliberation and issued a binding determination.
The term is not a substantive legal concept in its own right but rather a verbal marker in pleading formulae, used to confirm that the arbitral process had reached its conclusion and that an award had been made.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with medieval and early modern English legal records — Year Books, plea rolls, original writs, or forms from the Registrum Omnium Brevium — will encounter *arbitratus* as a functional word in Latin instrument drafting rather than as a defined legal doctrine. Its significance is syntactic and procedural: its presence in a document indicates that arbitrators acted and rendered a decision, which in turn triggered legal consequences such as the right to enforce the award or to bring an action upon it.
The key research trap is treating *arbitratus* as a synonym for modern "arbitration" as a system or institution. The word records an event — a completed award — not the process leading to it. When reading early writs or pleading records that use *arbitrati fuissent et adjudicassent* or similar constructions, researchers should understand the phrase as the formal assertion that an award was made, analogous to stating that a court had adjudged a matter.
Researchers consulting the Registrum Omnium Brevium (the standard medieval English register of original writs) will find this language in writ forms involving arbitral awards. The coupling of *arbitrati* with *adjudicassent* (had adjudged) is characteristic: the two terms work together to assert both the arbitral and quasi-judicial character of the act, reinforcing the award's enforceability.
Because the term appears almost exclusively in Latin records predating the shift to English pleading, it will rarely surface in post-1730s English legal materials (after the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730 required English-language proceedings). For purposes of the Law Mind corpus, *arbitratus* belongs to the Latin pleading vocabulary that fades with the latinization of English law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the entry's only significant historical dictionary treatment, defining *arbitratus* as "awarded" and illustrating its use with the phrase *idem arbitratores arbitrati fuissent et adjudicassent* — "the said arbitrators awarded and adjudged" — sourced to the Registrum Originale (Reg. Orig. 111). Burrill's entry is brief, as appropriate for a term that is a pleading word rather than a jurisprudential concept.
No significant divergence appears across historical sources because the term's meaning is stable and narrow. What historical dictionaries do not address is the procedural significance of the phrase: the coupling of *arbitrati* with *adjudicassent* likely served to foreclose challenges to the award's legal force by asserting both voluntary (arbitral) and authoritative (adjudicative) grounds for the determination.
Jurisdictional Note
As a Latin pleading term, *arbitratus* is not jurisdiction-specific within modern law. Its relevance is confined to English legal records from the medieval and early modern periods. It has no operative meaning in contemporary American, English, or other common law pleading.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See: ARBITRATION