Definition
An archaic spelling variant of indictment — the formal written accusation charging a person with a criminal offense, issued by a grand jury upon finding probable cause. The term itself carries no distinct legal meaning separate from indictment; it is simply an older orthographic form of the same word, preserved in early English legal texts and dictionaries.
Common Confusion
Enditement and indictment are the same legal concept. Researchers encountering enditement in historical sources should not treat it as a separate or distinct legal instrument. The variation in spelling reflects the inconsistent orthographic conventions of early modern legal writing, not a difference in procedure or substance. Similarly, the French-derived enditer and the Latin-influenced indictment point to the same underlying act: the formal accusation of a person by a body of sworn jurors.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research value of this entry is recognition. A researcher working through early English legal manuscripts, Year Books, or texts by antiquarian legal writers such as Cowell or Blount will encounter enditement and related spelling variants. Failure to recognize these as equivalent to indictment can cause a researcher to overlook directly relevant material or to misread the procedural posture of a historical case.
Several practical points for corpus researchers:
First, spelling was not standardized in English legal writing until well into the eighteenth century. The Law Mind corpus, particularly in its older layers, will reflect this variability. Searches limited to the modern spelling indictment will miss instances recorded as enditement, endytement, or similar variants.
Second, Cowell's Interpreter and Blount's Law Dictionary — the two sources Burrill specifically names as users of this form — are reference points for understanding how early modern legal writers understood criminal procedure. When those sources use enditement, they are describing the same grand jury mechanism that later sources call indictment.
Third, the French root enditer (to write down, to dictate, or to accuse in formal terms) is reflected in this spelling more visibly than in the Latinized indictment. Researchers tracing the procedural history of the grand jury accusation, or the relationship between Norman French legal vocabulary and later English common law terminology, may find the older spelling a useful thread.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary identifies enditement plainly as an old form of indictment, attributing its use to Cowell and Blount and noting the French derivation from enditer. This is a minimal but accurate entry — Burrill makes no claim that enditement carried any distinct procedural meaning, and his cross-reference to the French root is the substantive content.
The entry reflects a broader pattern in Burrill's treatment of archaic terms: he preserves them as navigational aids for researchers rather than as substantively independent concepts. The entry essentially says: if you see this word, look up indictment.
What historical dictionaries do not provide here is any trace of whether enditement ever functioned as a term of art distinguishable from indictment — for instance, whether it was used in a specific court, period, or procedural context with any specialized meaning. The available evidence suggests it did not; it was simply an alternate spelling in common use before orthographic standardization.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Indictment; Grand Jury.