Definition
In old English law, an animal found wandering without a known owner. The term designated a stray or waif beast — livestock or other domestic animal that had strayed from its owner and been found on another's land or on the public way. As with other waifs and strays, the erraticum was subject to the lord's claim or the Crown's prerogative if the true owner failed to reclaim it within the period fixed by law or custom.
Common Confusion
ERRATICUM should not be confused with ERRATUM (a clerical error in a document) despite their near-identical spelling and their accidental proximity in alphabetically organized dictionaries. The second edition of Black's, in particular, places both terms on the same page. ERRATUM is a procedural and documentary concept with ongoing relevance; ERRATICUM is a feudal property category with no modern application. A researcher scanning a page quickly could mistake one for the other.
Why It Matters in Research
ERRATICUM is a term of purely historical significance, appearing almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal sources. Researchers encountering it in manorial records, feudal tenure documents, or early common law treatises should understand it as a property-classification term, not a procedural or remedial one. It belongs to the cluster of concepts governing waifs, strays, estrays, and derelict property that were central to manorial jurisdiction and Crown prerogative but have no direct survival in modern common law doctrine.
The term appears without extended treatment in any of the historical dictionaries, each of which simply cross-references Cowell's Interpreter — meaning researchers looking for elaboration should go directly to John Cowell's 1607 work rather than expecting further dictionary development. The sparse coverage reflects the term's narrow technical function: it named a category of animal property rather than encoding a legal rule or standard capable of evolving across time.
Researchers working in historical property law should note that ERRATICUM overlaps substantially with ESTRAY and WAIF. The distinction in period sources is often one of terminology rather than legal consequence: all three categories triggered the same basic regime of lord's or Crown's entitlement to unclaimed wandering property. Context and jurisdiction within England (manorial versus royal, county versus borough) may affect which term a source prefers.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four historical dictionaries consulted give essentially identical entries: a wandering beast; a waif or stray. All four cite Cowell as the sole authority. This unanimity is unremarkable given the term's narrow scope, but it signals that no significant doctrinal development or disagreement attached to it in the Anglo-American tradition. Black's second edition places the ERRATICUM entry immediately adjacent to ERRATUM, and the proximity in that edition is purely alphabetical — the two terms share no legal relationship.
The consistent reliance on Cowell across sources spanning roughly a century of American legal lexicography (mid-nineteenth through early twentieth century) suggests the compilers found no case law or statutory treatment worth adding. Burrill's designation "L. Lat." (Law Latin) confirms the term never naturalized into English legal usage beyond archaic reference.