Definition
In Roman and civil law, to submit a dispute to arbitration by mutual agreement of the parties. The term denotes both the act of submitting and the formal agreement through which that submission is made. A compromittere required the consent of all parties to refer their controversy to one or more arbitrators, binding themselves by mutual promise to abide by the outcome.
The related noun form, compromissum, refers to the agreement itself — the mutual promise by which parties bound themselves to arbitration. Together, compromittere and compromissum form the conceptual pair at the foundation of consensual arbitration in Roman and canon law.
Common Confusion
Burrill's entry conflates two distinct terms in what appears to be a typographic or editorial artifact of the original printing: compromittere (to submit to arbitration) and compotus (a statement of accounts or household ledger of a religious institution). These are unrelated terms that appear to have been merged in the source text. Researchers encountering Burrill's entry should treat these as separate concepts. Compotus belongs to ecclesiastical and manorial accounting practice; compromittere belongs to arbitration and civil procedure.
Why It Matters in Research
Compromittere is a term of Roman civil law carried forward into canon law and, through both channels, into the medieval English legal tradition and later civilian-influenced jurisdictions. Researchers working in pre-modern ecclesiastical records, continental legal sources, or early English equity and admiralty practice will encounter this term in the context of arbitration clauses and submission agreements.
The transmission of this concept matters for tracing the historical foundations of modern arbitration doctrine. When common law sources use terms like "submission to arbitration" or "arbitration bond," the underlying conceptual architecture often traces back to the Roman compromittere and the corresponding compromissum. Researchers who encounter these Latin terms in medieval or early modern sources and reach for a modern arbitration framework may miss the specific procedural mechanics that attached to the Roman form — including the stipulatory penalty (poena compromissi) that parties typically agreed to pay if they refused to comply with the arbitrator's award.
The corruption or compression of Burrill's entry is a concrete research trap. The printed text runs compromittere and compotus together in a way that may mislead a researcher scanning the entry quickly. Cross-checking against Digest citations (Dig. 4.8) and Reeves' History of English Law confirms that the arbitration sense is the operative legal meaning.
Jurisdictional note and corpus connections: In common law jurisdictions, the concept survived primarily through equity and admiralty practice, and later through statutory arbitration frameworks. In mixed or civilian jurisdictions (Louisiana, Quebec, Scotland, South Africa), the term and its derivatives retain closer structural relevance. In ecclesiastical law sources of any jurisdiction, compromittere may also appear in a distinct canon law sense related to the delegation of authority to elect, particularly in the context of papal or episcopal elections — a usage researchers should not confuse with the arbitration meaning.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the primary historical dictionary source available here, and his entry — despite its typographic difficulties — correctly identifies the core meaning: to submit to arbitration, supported by reference to Dig. 4.8.27.2 and Reeves' History of English Law. The Digest citations are genuine and point to the title De receptis: qui arbitrium receperint ut sententiam dicant (Dig. 4.8), which is the foundational Roman law title on arbitration and the arbitrator's undertaking.
Burrill's definition of compromissum as "a mutual promise" and "a submission to arbitrators" is accurate and consistent with the classical sources. The companion Digest reference, Dig. 4.8.4, addresses the binding nature of the submission agreement.
What historical dictionaries generally do not address is the poena compromissi — the stipulated penalty clause that gave the Roman compromissum its practical bite, since the arbitrator's award itself was not directly enforceable by Roman procedural law without such a penalty agreement. This gap is significant for researchers trying to understand why Roman arbitration worked in practice despite the absence of direct enforcement mechanisms comparable to modern arbitration statutes.