Definition
A Latin term from old criminal law meaning, literally, "the crime of burning." Crimen incendii was a broad common-law category encompassing not only what modern law recognizes as arson — the wrongful burning of a dwelling house — but also the burning of a person, an animal, or any other chattel. The scope of the offense was therefore considerably wider than modern arson, treating destructive burning as a category of crime regardless of whether the object consumed was real property or personal property, human or animal.
The term is now obsolete as an operative legal category. It survives only in historical sources and comparative discussions of the evolution of arson law.
Common Confusion
Crimen incendii is sometimes treated as a simple Latin synonym for arson, but this is inaccurate and historically significant. Arson in modern law is confined primarily to the wrongful burning of structures — most jurisdictions define it by reference to buildings, dwellings, or real property. Crimen incendii was broader: it captured the burning of livestock, goods, and even human beings within a single criminal category. A researcher who equates the two terms will misread the scope of the offense as it appears in early English legal texts and miss cases involving the burning of chattels or persons that would not qualify as arson today.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in pre-modern English criminal law — particularly materials predating the systematic statutory refinement of arson — must treat crimen incendii carefully. The term signals a conceptual framework that does not map cleanly onto modern arson doctrine.
Several traps are worth noting:
First, when this term appears in early sources, the surrounding context determines whether the offense involved real property or something else entirely. A burning catalogued as crimen incendii in a medieval record could involve the destruction of livestock or goods — offenses that later centuries would classify under entirely different heads of criminal law, if at all.
Second, Rapalje & Lawrence's entry for crimen incendii is corrupted in the source text — the definition bleeds into surrounding entries (crimen laesae majestatis) with an apparent printing or editorial error. Researchers relying on Rapalje for this term should verify against Black's or Burrill, both of which provide clean, consistent entries.
Third, the references in the historical dictionaries point to Britton (c. 9), Mirrorof Justices (c. 1, sect. 8), and Crabb's History of English Law (p. 308). These are foundational English legal texts from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Researchers tracing the conceptual history of arson will find these the appropriate primary sources; the dictionary entries themselves are summaries, not analysis.
Fourth, the Latin language of this term indicates that, when encountered in early Year Books or common-law records, it is operating within a scholastic and ecclesiastical legal vocabulary. Canon law and civil law traditions also addressed incendiarism, and the overlap between ecclesiastical jurisdiction and common-law jurisdiction over burning offenses may be relevant in some pre-Reformation research contexts.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Burrill agree precisely on the scope of the term: both define it as the crime of burning, extending beyond arson to the burning of persons, animals, and chattels, and both cite the same sources (Britton and Crabb). Burrill adds the Mirror of Justices citation and supplies the Saxon etymological gloss (bernet), which may assist researchers working with Anglo-Saxon or early Norman sources. Neither dictionary offers doctrinal analysis; they function here purely as definitional pointers to the older authorities.
Rapalje's entry is unreliable for this term due to what appears to be a typesetting or compilation error — the definition trails off and incorporates text belonging to an adjacent entry. It should not be used as an independent source for the meaning of crimen incendii.
All three historical dictionaries treat the term as entirely obsolete, which is itself a research datum: by the time these dictionaries were compiled (late nineteenth century), crimen incendii had no operative role in Anglo-American criminal law and was purely a term of legal history.
Jurisdictional Note
Crimen incendii was never adopted as a statutory or common-law term of art in American jurisdictions. American law developed arson doctrine directly, leaving crimen incendii as a historical Latin label of English origin. Researchers in American legal history will encounter the term only in comparative or antiquarian contexts, not in operative case law or statutes.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Arson — Historical Development; Common Law Criminal Categories