Legal Definitions - attermoiement

Attermoiement refers to a formal agreement or settlement, particularly within the realm of ecclesiastical law (church law). It typically involves a mutual arrangement to resolve a dispute or manage financial obligations, often by deferring payments or restructuring terms.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Imagine a small parish church that undertook a major renovation project, incurring significant debt to the diocesan building fund. Due to unexpected financial hardship among its congregation, the parish finds itself unable to meet the original repayment schedule. An attermoiement would be a formal agreement negotiated between the parish and the diocese, perhaps brokered by a bishop or church council, to restructure the debt. This might involve extending the repayment period, reducing the monthly installments, or even temporarily deferring payments until the parish's financial situation improves. This agreement serves as a binding resolution to the financial difficulty within the church's legal framework.

• Consider a situation where two neighboring monasteries, both under the same ecclesiastical jurisdiction, have a long-standing disagreement over the precise boundary of their agricultural lands. This dispute impacts their respective tithe collections and resource management. Rather than escalating the conflict, the abbots of both monasteries, with the guidance of a higher church authority, enter into an attermoiement. This formal agreement would clearly define the disputed boundary, establish rules for shared resources if applicable, and outline a process for future dispute resolution, thereby settling the conflict according to ecclesiastical principles.