Sacramentum - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition sacramentum

Definition :

Sacramentum, an oath. As to the sacramenti actio of the Civil Law, see Sand. Just., and Cum. C. L. 313.

Means the money staked as wager. The word evidently has a religious significance. The sum of the wager, forfeited by the party found to be in the wrong, was anciently devoted to religious pur-poses, later went to the public chest. But there is reason to think that at a still earlier period the word sacramentum meant, not a thing staked as a wager on the result of litigation, but an oath by each party as to justice of his cause, involving a penalty to be paid to the offended deity, if the oath was found to be false, the Element of Roman Law, R.W. Lee, 4th Edn., 1956, p. 422.