Definition
Champertia is a Latin legal term from medieval English law referring to the offense of champerty — the act of unlawfully bargaining with a party to a lawsuit to finance or assist that party's litigation in exchange for a share of any recovery obtained. The term appears in old English legal records and registers as a formal designation for the offense itself, functioning as a noun that names the wrong rather than the wrongdoer. It is the offense; champertor (or champerter) is the person who commits it.
Champerty, the underlying offense, arose from the common law's long-standing prohibition on third parties purchasing or profiting from an interest in litigation. The concern was that such arrangements invited abuse: powerful financiers could stir up litigation, corrupt courts, or exploit vulnerable litigants. Champertia names that prohibited bargain as a matter of criminal or quasi-criminal law.
Common Confusion
CHAMPERTIA, CHAMPERTOR, and CHAMPERTY are closely related but distinct. Champertia is the offense or wrong itself. Champertor (also champerter or cambiparticeps in law Latin) is the individual guilty of that offense. Champerty is the modern English form of the same underlying concept and is the term in active use today. Researchers encountering champertia in old writs, registers, or pleadings should treat it as the Latin nominal form of champerty — not as a separate doctrine.
Champerty is also distinct from maintenance. Maintenance is the broader offense of improperly supporting or financing another's litigation without a share in the proceeds. Champerty is maintenance plus a bargain for a portion of the recovery. All champerty involves maintenance; not all maintenance is champerty.
Why It Matters in Research
Champertia appears almost exclusively in old Latin-form legal documents — original writs, plea rolls, and early registers of the kind cited in Burrill's entry (Reg. Orig. 183). Researchers working in pre-modern English legal records, Year Books, or early common law treatises will encounter this Latin form where modern sources would simply say "champerty." Recognizing champertia as the Latin-register equivalent of champerty is essential to correctly indexing and translating these sources.
The term does not appear in modern American or English case law or statutes under this Latin form. Any search for champertia in 19th- or 20th-century legal databases will return near-nothing; the research trail requires pivoting immediately to champerty, maintenance, and related doctrines under their modern English names.
The practical doctrine itself remains active and contested. In many U.S. jurisdictions, traditional champerty prohibitions have eroded significantly with the rise of third-party litigation finance. Researchers tracing the doctrine's evolution must distinguish between the old criminal offense (champertia/champerty as a crime) and the modern treatment of champerty as a defense to contract enforcement or a professional conduct issue. Burrill's entry connects champertia to the criminal law context — important for understanding that the historical offense had penal consequences, not merely civil ones.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary treats champertia as a Latin form within old English law, citing Reg. Orig. 183 as a source where the term appears in the margin — consistent with the kind of marginal Latin glossing common in early English legal registers. Burrill links champertia directly to champerty and to the related Latin term cambiparticeps (literally, "sharer of the field" or "sharer of exchange"), which is the etymological root of the champert- family of terms.
Burrill's entry for champertor and champerter identifies the person guilty of champertia, completing the trio: offense (champertia), offender (champertor), and modern English form (champerty). The entry's placement alongside the chamberlain offices reflects the dictionary's organizational approach rather than any doctrinal connection between those terms.
Historical dictionaries generally agree that champertia belongs to the Latin-form vocabulary of medieval English criminal law and that its substance is fully continuous with champerty as later understood. No historical source surveyed treats champertia as a doctrine meaningfully distinct from champerty; it is a form of the same word, not a separate legal category.
What historical dictionaries do not address is the subsequent weakening of champerty doctrine in Anglo-American law, the rise of contingency fee arrangements (which occupy related but legally distinct territory), or modern third-party litigation finance. Researchers must supply that evolution from primary sources and later commentary.
Jurisdictional Note
Champertia as a distinct term has no modern jurisdictional footprint — it is a historical Latin form only. The underlying doctrine of champerty, however, varies substantially: some U.S. states retain champerty as a ground to void litigation finance contracts; others have largely or entirely abolished it. English law abolished champerty and maintenance as criminal offenses by statute in 1967, though civil consequences may remain.