Definition
A Latin term meaning fault or sin. In legal usage, *peccatum* appears primarily in maxims and brocard literature rather than as an operative legal concept. It denotes a wrongful act, transgression, or culpable conduct, drawing on the moral vocabulary of Roman and ecclesiastical law that heavily influenced early common law jurisprudence. The term does not define a cause of action or legal standard in modern law but surfaces in legal maxims where it carries the sense of a blameworthy act compounded by the actor's subsequent conduct.
Common Confusion
*Peccatum* should not be confused with *delictum* (a civil wrong giving rise to liability) or *crimen* (a criminal act). The three terms occupy overlapping but distinct conceptual space in Roman and canon law sources. *Peccatum* carries the stronger moral and ecclesiastical coloring; *delictum* and *crimen* are more strictly legal in application. Researchers encountering *peccatum* in early common law texts should treat it as moral-legal vocabulary rather than a technical term of art with procedural consequences.
Why It Matters in Research
*Peccatum* is encountered almost exclusively in maxim collections, brocards, and early treatise literature, not in pleadings or statutes. Its significance in legal research is almost entirely interpretive: the term signals that a passage is drawing on natural law, canon law, or moral philosophy to frame a legal proposition. Researchers working in ecclesiastical court records, early equity materials, or natural law treatises (Grotius, Pufendorf, and their successors as absorbed into English legal writing) should be alert to *peccatum* as a marker of that tradition.
The maxim associated with *peccatum* in Burrill — *peccatum peccato addit qui culpæ quam facit patrocinium defensionis adjungit* — is the primary legal context in which the term appears. That maxim encodes a principle with real doctrinal resonance: that offering a false or unjustified defense to a wrong already committed aggravates the original fault. Courts and treatise writers invoked this idea in contexts touching on good faith, consciousness of guilt, and the moral weight courts might assign to a party's behavior during litigation or in attempts to excuse misconduct. Researchers analyzing early equity decisions or natural law arguments about good faith dealing may find this maxim cited as rhetorical or normative support, even where it lacks the force of a binding rule.
The term's ecclesiastical provenance also means it appears in canon law digests and commentaries on moral theology that bled into early legal education. Researchers in the history of legal thought, particularly the intersection of canon law and common law, should note *peccatum* as one of several Latin moral terms — alongside *dolus*, *culpa*, and *fraus* — that served as conceptual bridges between religious and secular legal reasoning.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary shelf source offering a direct entry. Burrill defines *peccatum* as "a fault; a sin" and supplies the maxim from Co. Rep. 5:49, which he renders as: "He adds sin to sin who joins to the fault which he has committed, the protection of a defence." The gloss in brackets — clarifying that this means one who undertakes to excuse or justify an offense after committing it — is Burrill's editorial addition and usefully unpacks the maxim's practical import.
No other major English legal dictionaries (Bouvier, Black's early editions, Jacob's) carry a standalone entry for *peccatum*, which confirms its status as a term of learning rather than practice. It belongs to the stratum of Latin legal vocabulary preserved in maxim collections — Broom's *Legal Maxims* being the natural place to pursue the maxim further — rather than in the operating vocabulary of courts.
The Coke citation underlying the maxim should be treated as the authoritative anchor if the maxim is to be traced in primary sources. Researchers should approach it as a judicial use of a brocard to underscore a point about moral culpability, not as a holding turning on the definition of *peccatum* itself.