Definition
A bullet or small projectile. *Pelletum* is a Latin term appearing in early modern English legal records to denote a bullet — specifically, the kind discharged from a firearm. The term surfaces in legal proceedings where precise description of the instrument or projectile causing injury or death was required as part of a formal pleading.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with early English criminal records, coroner's inquests, or indictments from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will encounter *pelletum* in Latin pleading contexts where the cause of death or wounding by firearm is specified. Indictments of this era required technical precision in describing the weapon, the projectile, and the manner of injury — a failure to name the instrument correctly could defeat a prosecution on procedural grounds. *Pelletum* appears alongside descriptions of the firearm itself (such as a *sclopetus* or *pistoleum*) and the wound inflicted, forming part of a formulaic chain of allegation.
The term is effectively obsolete outside of historical legal Latin. It will not appear in modern pleadings, statutes, or judicial opinions. Its research value is almost entirely confined to transcription and interpretation of pre-modern English legal manuscripts, printed case reports in Law French and Latin, and early common law treatise materials. Researchers encountering the term in a Latin indictment should not confuse it with related terms for the weapon itself — *pelletum* is the projectile, not the gun.
The reference in Burrill to *Long's Case*, 5 Co. 120a, 122a, anchors the term in the Coke Reports, one of the foundational sources for early modern common law pleading practice. That case and its surrounding materials are the natural starting point for understanding how firearms-related injuries were pleaded in this period.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the sole historical legal dictionary treatment: "*Pelletum*. L. Lat. A bullet. 5 Co. 120 a, 122 a, Long's case. Called a pellet. Id. ibid." The entry is terse but sufficient for its purpose — confirming the Latin legal term, its English equivalent, and its documentary grounding. Burrill draws directly on Coke's Reports rather than offering independent analysis, which is characteristic of his treatment of narrow procedural Latin. No other dictionary in the standard shelf (Tomlin, Jacob, Black's early editions) appears to carry a separate entry for *pelletum*, suggesting it was recognized as sufficiently specialized that a single citation to Coke was considered adequate cross-referencing.
The term belongs to a broader family of Latin pleading vocabulary that English courts used to maintain formal precision in criminal indictments well into the seventeenth century. Historical sources are uniformly consistent on the meaning — there is no recorded ambiguity or competing sense. What historical sources do not address is the procedural consequence of omitting or misstating the projectile in a firearms indictment, which requires consulting the surrounding case law and pleading treatises directly.