Definition
An archaic Latin term from old Scots law denoting a cannon or piece of ordnance. The term appears in early Scottish criminal and military contexts, typically in reference to artillery mounted on wheeled carriages. The phrase recorded in historical usage — *cum vomentis curriculatis* — translates as "with pieces of ordnance mounted on wheeled carriages," indicating that vomentum described not merely any firearm but specifically a mobile cannon of the type used in medieval and early modern military operations.
Why It Matters in Research
Vomentum is a narrow, period-specific term unlikely to appear outside early Scottish legal records, particularly criminal trial records from the reigns of Edward III and Henry VI. Researchers working in 1 Pitcairn's *Criminal Trials* or related Scots ecclesiastical and crown court records may encounter the term in indictments or forfeitures involving unlawful possession of military equipment or in accounts of siege and military conduct.
The chief navigational trap is orthographic: Latin terms in manuscript Scots records of this period are frequently abbreviated, contracted, or corrupted by transcription, and vomentum may appear in variant spellings. Researchers should not assume that a term resembling vomentum in a modern index refers to any cognate legal concept — the term has no recognized doctrinal descendant in modern Scots or English law.
There is no substantive common law development of the term. It functioned descriptively rather than doctrinally — identifying a category of weapon rather than defining a legal standard or element of an offense. Its significance is evidentiary and historical, not conceptual.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the sole shelf source to record vomentum, and its treatment is brief and purely definitional. Burrill identifies the term as belonging to old Scots law and supplies the illustrative phrase *cum vomentis curriculatis*, drawing directly from Pitcairn's *Criminal Trials*. No independent doctrinal analysis is offered, and Burrill makes no attempt to trace the term beyond its descriptive military function.
No other standard legal dictionary in the Law Mind corpus — not Black's, not Bouvier's, not Tomlin's — records vomentum. This absence is itself informative: the term never achieved circulation outside narrow Scots archival usage and was not absorbed into the broader common law lexicon. Researchers should treat Burrill's entry as the ceiling of available dictionary support and look to the primary sources — Pitcairn and the underlying crown records — for any further context.
The adjacent Burrill entry for *vox* (*speech; statement*), appearing on the same page, is unrelated and should not be read as connected to vomentum. The proximity is an artifact of alphabetical arrangement, not doctrinal association.
Jurisdictional Note
Vomentum is a term of old Scots law only. It has no equivalent usage in English common law sources and no modern application in any jurisdiction.