Definition
A term of ecclesiastical contempt used by authorities of the Roman Church to describe the technical formalities and procedural intricacies of secular law as administered by non-clerical lawyers. The word did not denote a legal concept or doctrine but rather functioned as a pejorative label — a way for Church authorities to dismiss the arcane technicalities of lay legal practice as something lesser than, or incomprehensible to, those trained in canon or ecclesiastical law.
The term carries no operative legal meaning in the sense of defining rights, duties, or procedures. It is a historical artifact of the tension between ecclesiastical jurisdiction and secular common law practice, preserved in legal dictionaries primarily as a curiosity of legal history.
Common Confusion
The first edition of Black's Law Dictionary contains an apparent typographical or editorial error in which language relating to the definition of sheriff intrudes into the sherrerie entry, producing the nonsensical phrase "the principal sheriff of a county, who is also a judge" in the middle of the definition. This is not an alternative meaning of sherrerie. Researchers relying on the first edition should consult the second edition or Bouvier for the accurate text.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers are unlikely to encounter this term in operative legal documents, pleadings, or statutes. Its significance is entirely contextual and historical. It appears in legal dictionaries as a window into the jurisdictional rivalry between Church and secular courts — a conflict that shaped the development of English common law, particularly in areas such as probate, marriage, and contract enforcement, where ecclesiastical courts long claimed concurrent or exclusive jurisdiction.
A researcher who encounters the word in a historical source should treat it not as a term of art but as evidence of the rhetorical posture of the Church toward common law practitioners. Its presence in a document may be a signal that the surrounding text is addressing jurisdictional competition, clerical criticism of lay courts, or arguments for ecclesiastical supremacy over particular subject matter.
The corruption in the Black's Law Dictionary first edition entry — which inserts a garbled definition of "sheriff" mid-sentence — is a transcription error and should be disregarded. The second edition and the other historical sources render the definition cleanly and consistently.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries — Black's (1st ed.), Black's (2nd ed.), Rapalje & Lawrence, and Bouvier — are in substantial agreement on the definition. Each describes sherrerie as a term employed contemptuously by Roman Church authorities to characterize the technical aspects of secular law as practiced by non-clerical lawyers. The wording across sources is nearly identical, suggesting all four drew from a common earlier authority.
Rapalje & Lawrence and Bouvier both attribute the definition to Bacon, a reference most likely to the legal writings associated with Francis Bacon or an earlier Bacon treatise on legal history. Black's editions attribute the definition to Wharton — referring to J.J.S. Wharton's Law Lexicon — rather than Bacon directly, suggesting the Black's editors sourced the entry through Wharton rather than from primary materials.
None of the historical dictionaries provide any further context for the word's use in specific ecclesiastical proceedings or texts, nor do they trace its appearance in primary sources beyond the attribution line. The entry exists in these dictionaries as a received curiosity rather than a researched historical account.