Definition
Latin: "the increase of the county." A term from old English fiscal administration referring to the surplus revenue a sheriff was required to account for above the established viscontiel rents — that is, above the fixed ancient rents at which the county farm had been set. When actual revenues from royal lands and rights within a county exceeded the baseline farm amount, that excess was the crementum comitatus, and sheriffs were held personally responsible for delivering it to the crown. The term appears in historical accounts and exchequer records as a line of accountability distinct from the base county farm itself.
Common Confusion
Crementum comitatus is sometimes encountered near discussions of the county farm (firma comitatus) and the viscontiel rents generally. These are related but distinct concepts. The firma comitatus was the fixed lump sum a sheriff contracted to pay the crown for the right to collect county revenues; the viscontiel rents were the specific rental revenues assigned at a fixed historical rate. The crementum was the improvement — the amount by which actual collections exceeded those fixed rates. Researchers conflating these three may misread exchequer records as showing either overpayment or surplus where only one of the three concepts is in play.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a highly specialized term of medieval English fiscal and administrative law. Researchers are unlikely to encounter it outside of primary exchequer records, Pipe Roll transcriptions, or works dealing with the history of English local government and the office of sheriff.
Several navigational points matter:
First, the term is essentially dead law. It has no modern legal application. Researchers finding it in historical sources should treat it as a marker of pre-modern English revenue administration, not as a concept with surviving procedural or statutory expression.
Second, the connection to comitatus in the phrase may create a false trail. The word comitatus appears in multiple distinct legal contexts — most prominently in the posse comitatus doctrine and the Posse Comitatus Act. Crementum comitatus has no relationship to either. The shared Latin root refers only to the county as an administrative unit. Researchers moving between these bodies of material should flag this false cognate early.
Third, viscontiel rents (sometimes spelled vicecomital rents) are the baseline against which the crementum is measured. Understanding what qualified as a viscontiel rent in a given period is prerequisite to understanding what the crementum represented in any specific exchequer account. Historical legal dictionaries define the term but do not resolve the underlying fiscal history, which requires consultation of Pipe Roll sources and works on the Exchequer's operation.
Fourth, the sheriff's personal accountability for the crementum is historically significant. It reflects the broader principle that the sheriff was not merely a collector but a guarantor — liable out of his own resources for shortfalls and expected to account for surpluses. This accountability structure is relevant to research on the evolution of the shrievalty and English administrative law.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries are in substantial agreement. Black's, Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence offer nearly identical definitions, with Bouvier's adding the specific framing that the crementum was "the increase of the king's rents above the old vicontiel rents." All three cite Wharton's Law Lexicon as their ultimate authority, indicating this definition traces through a single lineage rather than multiple independent sources. Burrill's entry, though truncated in the available extract, is consistent with this definition and confirms the term's classification as Latin legal terminology within old English law.
None of the historical dictionaries provide procedural depth — how the crementum was calculated, disputed, or enforced in exchequer proceedings — and none situate the term within the broader history of the Pipe Rolls or the county farm system. Researchers seeking that depth must look beyond dictionary sources entirely.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia entry on the Posse Comitatus Act (military_17) shares the word comitatus but addresses an entirely different legal doctrine. It is not substantively relevant to crementum comitatus. No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses English exchequer administration or the shrievalty. Omitted.