Definition
Attachiamentum is a Latin and Law Latin term from old English and Scotch law denoting an attachment — that is, the legal process by which a person or property was seized or held to compel appearance before a court or to secure satisfaction of a judgment. The term appears throughout medieval English legal records and in Bracton's foundational treatise on English law, where it describes both individual writs of attachment and the procedural sequence in which they were issued.
A related phrase, solennitas attachiamentorum, refers specifically to the formality of attachments — the established practice of issuing one attachment after another in a prescribed order or series before proceeding to more coercive process. This sequential procedure required that attachments be exhausted in regular succession before a court could escalate to distress or other stronger measures.
Common Confusion
Attachiamentum should not be confused with modern attachment, though the two are historically continuous. Modern attachment is a well-developed procedural remedy with statutory form; attachiamentum describes the older, writ-based precursor operating under common law forms that have since been displaced or codified. Researchers encountering attachiamentum in medieval sources should resist mapping modern attachment doctrine onto the term without accounting for the procedural context of sequential issuance that the historical practice required.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an archival and historical term. Researchers will encounter attachiamentum primarily in:
— Latin legal manuscripts and early printed treatises, especially Bracton's De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae (cited directly in Burrill as fol. 437, 439b, 440);
— Registers of original writs (Registrum Originale), where attachiamentum appears as a standard procedural form;
— Old Scotch legal sources, including Skene's De Verborum Significatione, which records the term's usage in Scottish practice.
The concept of solennitas attachiamentorum is particularly significant for researchers tracing the evolution of process law. Reeves' History of English Law (vol. 1, pp. 480–487) provides the most accessible secondary treatment of this sequential attachment practice and is the appropriate starting point for understanding how attachiamentum functioned within the broader system of mesne process.
The key research trap: attachiamentum in medieval sources is embedded in a procedural logic — the required series of attachments — that has no direct modern equivalent. Reading backward from modern attachment doctrine will obscure what is actually happening in the historical record. The escalating sequence mattered both procedurally and substantively; skipping steps could invalidate the process entirely.
For Scotch law sources, Skene's terminology and Burrill's cross-reference establish that attachiamentum was received into Scottish practice, though Scottish procedure diverged from English common law in significant respects. Researchers working on comparative Anglo-Scottish legal history should treat this as a point of connection, not identity.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole source among the shelf dictionaries to address attachiamentum directly, and its entry is appropriately spare: the term is identified as Law Latin, its English and Scotch provenance is noted, and the primary sources are cited. Burrill directs researchers to Bracton, the Registrum Originale, Spelman's glossary, Skene, and Reeves — all of which remain the authoritative reference points.
No modern legal dictionary is likely to carry this term. Its absence from later dictionaries reflects the displacement of Latin writ practice rather than any ambiguity in meaning. Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum, though not reproduced in Burrill's entry, is the standard glossary for Law Latin of this period and would amplify the Burrill entry for researchers needing fuller philological context.
Burrill does not editorialize on the decline of attachiamentum or its relationship to later statutory attachment practice. That gap is worth noting: the continuity between the medieval writ sequence and the modern attachment remedy is a significant line of procedural history that Burrill leaves to other sources to develop.
Jurisdictional Note
Attachiamentum is primarily a term of English common law and old Scotch law. Its procedural content — particularly the requirement of sequential attachments — reflects medieval English writ practice that was substantially reformed or replaced by the 19th century. American law inherited attachment as a concept but not the Latin term or its specific procedural formalities.