Definition
Receiptment is an archaic term from old English law referring to the act of knowingly receiving or harboring a felon after the commission of a felony. It is a form of criminal complicity — distinct from participation in the original offense — consisting in the sheltering or concealment of a person known to be a felon, thereby obstructing justice and aiding the felon's escape from lawful process.
The term is essentially obsolete in modern legal usage, having been absorbed into the broader doctrines of accessory after the fact and obstruction of justice. Its historical function was to define a specific criminal liability for those who, without participating in the underlying felony, nonetheless aided the perpetrator by providing refuge or concealment.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): No independent entry. "Receipt" in common usage means the act of receiving something, or a written acknowledgment of payment or delivery.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The receiving or harboring a felon knowingly, after the commission of a felony."
Editorial note: The Webster's 1913 definition here is drawn directly from Burrill and reflects legal usage, not ordinary usage. The common word "receipt" — meaning acknowledgment of delivery or payment — has no meaningful connection to the legal term receiptment. A researcher encountering this term in historical documents should not assume any relationship to commercial receipts, tax doctrine, or documentary instruments. The shared root is purely etymological.
Common Confusion
Receiptment is sometimes loosely grouped with accessory after the fact, but the two are not identical in historical usage. Receiptment in early English law had a specific statutory foundation (Statute of Westminster I, c. 14) and was applied to the act of harboring, with emphasis on shelter and concealment. Accessory after the fact is a broader common law category covering various forms of post-felony assistance, including receiptment but extending well beyond it. In Scottish law, the equivalent concept is resetting (or resset), which Burrill flags as the direct parallel — researchers working in Scottish legal history should pursue that term rather than receiptment.
Why It Matters in Research
Receiptment appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal sources — primarily treatises, commentaries, and materials tracing to or interpreting the Statute of Westminster I (1275). Researchers working in English legal history from the thirteenth through eighteenth centuries may encounter the term in contexts addressing criminal liability for those adjacent to, but not active in, a felony.
The term does not appear in American law as a formal doctrine. American jurisdictions developed the concept through the common law category of accessory after the fact, later codified in criminal statutes that typically define the offense in terms of assistance, concealment, or obstruction. A researcher who encounters "receiptment" in an American source is almost certainly reading a treatise or commentary borrowing from English legal tradition, not applying a recognized domestic doctrine.
The Norman French root (resceitment) signals that this term will appear in its variant spellings across early English legal materials. Sources predating standardized spelling may render it inconsistently. Burrill's cross-reference to the Scottish resetting is a useful navigational flag: if a source uses resetting or resset in a criminal harboring context, it is operating in the same conceptual space as receiptment.
The encyclopedia entries flagged under "receipt" — constructive receipt in tax law, bills of lading, warehouse receipts — are entirely unrelated to this term. That overlap is a function of shared etymology only and presents a real trap for keyword-based corpus searches. A search for "receipt" or "receiptment" across the Law Mind corpus will surface commercial, tax, and admiralty materials that have no bearing on this criminal law concept.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the primary entry and is the most detailed historical source available for this term. Burrill traces the term to its statutory origin in the Statute of Westminster I, chapter 14, and to Coke's commentary in the Second Institute (2 Inst. 182), which is among the most authoritative expositions of early English criminal law. The cross-reference to the Scottish resetting reflects Burrill's comparative method and is editorially useful.
Webster's 1913 reproduces the Burrill definition verbatim, offering no independent analysis. No other major American legal dictionaries (Black's, Bouvier's) carry this term as a primary entry in their commonly cited editions, which itself reflects how thoroughly the concept was absorbed into and displaced by accessory after the fact doctrine before American legal lexicography matured. The absence of this term from later dictionaries is a data point, not an oversight — it marks the moment at which receiptment ceased to function as operative legal vocabulary.
Jurisdictional Note
Receiptment is a term of English law with no independent doctrinal life in American jurisdictions. Scottish law uses resetting for the equivalent concept. Researchers should treat receiptment as a historical English term and consult modern accessory-after-the-fact statutes for any jurisdictional counterpart in contemporary practice.