An amercement is a financial penalty in English law, common during the Middle Ages, imposed either by the court or by peers. The noun "amercement" lately derives from the verb to amerce, thus: the king amerces his subject, who offended some law. The term is of Anglo-Norman origin (Law French, from French, from Latin), and literally means "being at the mercy of": a-merce-ment (English mercy is cognate).
While it is often synonymous with a fine, it differs in that a fine is a fixed sum prescribed by statute and was often voluntary, while an amercement is arbitrary. Amercements were commonly used as a punishment for minor offences (such as trespassing in the king's forest), as an alternative to imprisonment.
History
Early Norman rule
This system of amercements is found in working order as early as the Norman Conquest of 1066, but was still regarded as an innovation at the accession in 1100 of Henry I. As the number of entities having legal jurisdiction over a given location increased, the sums demanded from a wrong-doer who wished to buy himself back under protection of the law had become increasingly burdensome. He had to satisfy claims of the victim's family, of the victim's lord, of the lord within whose territory the crime had been committed, perhaps of the church whose sanctuary had been invaded, of other lords who could show an interest of any sort, and finally of the king as lord paramount. It became practically impossible to buy back the peace once it had been broken. The Crown, however, stepped in, and offered protection on certain conditions: the culprit surrendered himself and all that he had to the king, placing himself “in misericordiam regis,” and delivering a tangible pledge (vadium) as evidence and security of the surrender. Strictly speaking, the man's life and limbs and all that he had were at the king's mercy. The Crown, however, found that it might defeat its own interests by excessive greed; and generally contented itself with moderate forfeits. Rules of procedure were formulated: the amounts taken were regulated partly by the wealth of the offender, and partly by the gravity of the offence. Further, it became a recognized rule that the amount should be assessed by what was practically a jury of the culprit's neighbours; and attempts were also made to fix a maximum.
Thus a sort of tariff grew up, which the Crown usually respected in practice, without abandoning the right to demand more. Such payments were known as “amercements.” For petty offences, men were constantly placed “in mercy”: for failure to attend meetings of a hundred or county; for false or mistaken verdicts; for infringements of forest rights. The Charter of Henry I (chapter 8) had promised a remedy, drastic indeed but of a reactionary and impossible nature. His promise, to abolish altogether the system of amercements (then of recent introduction) and to revert to the earlier Anglo–Saxon system of bots and wites, was made only to be broken. No one could expect to pass through life (perhaps hardly through a single year) without being subjected to amercements.
Magna Carta
Three chapters of Magna Carta are occupied with remedies for this ill. Chapter 20 seeks to protect the ordinary layman; chapter 21, the barons; and chapter 22, the clergy. Three subdivisions—the freeman, the villein, and the merchant—are treated here.
Amercements are much mentioned in Magna Carta, particularly article 20:
Amercement of freemen
The great object of the reforms here promised was to eliminate the arbitrary element; the Crown must conform to its own customary rules. With this object, safeguards were devised for freemen. (a) For a slight offence, only a petty sum could be taken. This was nothing new: the records of John’s reign show that, both before and after 1215, very small amounts were often taken: threepence was a common sum. (b) For grave offences, a larger sum might be assessed, but not out of proportion to the offence. (c) In no case could the offender be pushed absolutely to the wall: his means of livelihood must be saved to him. Even if all other effects had to be sold off to pay the amount assessed, he was to retain his “contenement,” a word to be afterwards discussed. (d) Another clause provided machinery for giving effect to these rules. The amount must be fixed, not arbitrarily by the Crown, but by impartial assessors, “by the oath of honest men of the neighbourhood.” In the reissue of 1216 “honest men” became “honest and lawworthy (legalium) men,” a purely verbal change.