ARRAIAMENTUM

Definition

A Latin term from medieval English law referring to the array or arraying of a jury — that is, the formal ordering, marshaling, or preparation of a panel of jurors for trial. The term encompasses both the noun sense (the array itself, as a body of jurors assembled in proper form) and the verb-derived sense (the act of setting that array in order and making it ready for proceeding). In its procedural application, arraiamentum described the act of causing a tenant or party to be called forth and placing the cause in proper order for trial — particularly in the context of assizes, where "to array an assize" meant to bring the pleadings and parties into the formal posture required before the matter could be heard.

Common Confusion

Arraiamentum is closely related to, but distinct from, the modern term arraignment. Despite their shared Latin root (arraiare), they have diverged entirely in meaning. Arraignment today refers to the formal reading of a criminal charge and the defendant's entry of a plea. Arraiamentum, by contrast, belonged to civil and assize procedure and concerned the ordering of the jury panel, not the charging of a defendant. Researchers who encounter arraiamentum in historical sources should resist any instinct to read it through the lens of modern arraignment procedure.

Why It Matters in Research

This term appears almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal records — Year Books, assize rolls, and treatises such as Coke's commentary on Littleton — and will rarely if ever appear in post-seventeenth-century sources. Its significance in the corpus is primarily paleographic and procedural: a researcher working through Latin plea rolls or assize records needs to recognize arraiamentum as referring to jury array mechanics, not to any form of criminal charging procedure. The phrase calumpniavit arraiamentum — "challenged the array" — is a formula encountered in historical records and reflects the right of a party to challenge the entire jury panel on grounds of partiality or irregularity in its selection, as opposed to challenging individual jurors (challenges to the polls). Recognizing this formula unlocks a procedural moment that had significant tactical importance in medieval litigation. Researchers should also note that the concept embedded in arraiamentum — the challenge to the array — survived the term itself. The underlying doctrine persisted in English and American common law long after the Latin terminology fell out of use. Modern sources discussing jury array challenges and the right to challenge the panel are the doctrinal descendants of this medieval practice, even though they share no vocabulary with it. Cross-period research requires particular care: a researcher tracing jury selection procedure from the medieval period forward must mentally bridge the Latin arraiamentum of Coke and the Year Books to the plain-English array doctrine of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century treatises, and then to modern jury challenge procedure. These are the same legal concept in three different linguistic registers.

Historical Dictionary Support

Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the core entry for arraiamentum, correctly identifying its dual character as both noun (the array) and verbal derivative (the act of arraying). Burrill cites Coke on Littleton and Dyer's Reports, anchoring the term firmly in the classical common law tradition. The formula calumpniavit arraiamentum appearing in Dyer is a genuine historical usage and serves as a reliable touchstone. Burrill's definition of the verbal sense — "to cause the tenant to be called to make the plaint, and to set the cause in such order" — reflects the assize procedure of the medieval period, where the array of the jury was part of a larger choreography of getting a cause properly positioned before the court. This is a narrower and more procedurally specific meaning than the noun sense, and researchers should distinguish between the two when reading historical sources. No significant divergence exists among available sources because Burrill is the sole shelf source for this entry. The term is sufficiently archaic that it does not appear in later general legal dictionaries, which is itself informative: by the time of Jacob's or Black's early editions, the Latin terminology had been displaced by plain-English equivalents.

Jurisdictional Note

Arraiamentum is a term of English common law with no meaningful American variant. American courts inherited the underlying doctrine of jury array and array challenges, but the Latin term itself does not appear in American legal usage. Researchers working in American sources should look instead to "array" and "challenge to the array."

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Law Mind Encyclopedia — Array (Jury) Law Mind Encyclopedia — Arraignment Law Mind Encyclopedia — Assize

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