Definition
A medieval Latin term appearing in old English legal texts meaning the tackle, rigging, furniture, or equipment belonging to a vessel or vehicle. The term encompasses the full complement of gear, fittings, and appurtenances attached to or necessary for the operation of a boat or cart — not the vessel or vehicle itself, but the working apparatus that goes with it. In practice, attilamentum appeared in legal instruments to confirm that a transfer or seizure included all associated tackle and equipment, not merely the principal object.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is essentially confined to medieval and early English legal texts, particularly the period covered by Fleta and similar treatises of the thirteenth century. Researchers encountering attilamentum in historical records should treat it as a term of conveyancing precision: its presence signals that the drafter was specifying the full suite of operational equipment as part of a grant, forfeiture, or legal description. The absence of the term, conversely, may have been interpreted to exclude tackle from a transfer of the vessel itself.
The term is a reliable marker of period and source. If attilamentum appears in a document, it is almost certainly drawing on the civilian or canon law Latin tradition as filtered through English common law practice before approximately 1400. Researchers working in admiralty history, manorial records, or early property law will encounter it occasionally; those working in later periods are unlikely to see it at all. There is no modern statutory or common law survival of the term — it does not carry forward into post-medieval English law under this name.
Cross-referencing Fleta is essential for understanding the two primary usages Burrill records: the nautical context (boat with lading and tackle) and the agricultural context (harness and fittings belonging to carts). These are distinct operational contexts, and the term's flexibility across both suggests it functioned as a general term of art for appurtenances rather than a technically narrow designation tied to one kind of property.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary anglophone legal dictionary source for this term, and his entry draws directly on Fleta — a thirteenth-century English legal treatise written in Latin, traditionally attributed to a judge imprisoned in the Fleet. Burrill quotes two passages: one covering a boat with her lading and all her tackle (lib. 1, c. 25, § 9), and one covering tackle, equipment, and small harness belonging to carts (lib. 2, c. 85). These two references establish the term's dual application and confirm that attilamentum was used by Fleta's author as a general term for appurtenances across both maritime and agricultural property.
No other major historical legal dictionaries in the standard anglophone tradition — Jacob, Tomlin, Black's early editions — carry this term, reflecting its narrow textual range. Its absence from those sources underscores that attilamentum never achieved wider circulation as a legal term of art; it remains essentially a Fleta-specific usage preserved by Burrill.