The New International Encyclopædia/Amercement

AMERCE′MENT (Angl. Fr. amerciment, from amercier, to be at the mercy of). In old English law, a pecuniary penalty imposed for crime or for the violation of the fealty which the freeholder owed his lord. It was imposed as the result of a judicial conviction of the offense charged, but differed from a fine in that it was a commutation of a sentence of forfeiture of goods, while the fine was a commutation of a sentence of imprisonment of the person. The decree of the court was that the offender was at the mercy (in misericordia, à merci) of the king, the sheriff, or the lord in whose court the judgment as rendered. The amount of the amercement, originally unlimited, as the term implies, was regulated by a provision of Magna Charta (1215), which decreed that all amercements should be set, or fixed, by good men of the neighborhood, the peers of the offender, and that the amount should vary with the gravity of the offense. Consult Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, second edition (London and Boston, 1899). See Criminal Law; Fine; Punishment.