placitum

Placitum \Plac"i*tum\, n.; pl. {Placita}. [LL. See {Placit}.]
   1. A public court or assembly in the Middle Ages, over which
      the sovereign president when a consultation was held upon
      affairs of state. --Brande & C.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Old Eng. Law) A court, or cause in court.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. (Law) A plea; a pleading; a judicial proceeding; a suit.
      --Burrill.
      [1913 Webster]
    

PLACITUM. A plea. This word is nomen generalissimum, and refers to all the 
pleas in the case. 1 Saund. 388, n. 6; Skinn. 554; S. C. earth. 834; Yelv. 
65. By placitum is also understood the subdivisions in abridgments and other 
works, where the point decided in a case is set down, separately, and 
generally numbered. In citing, it is abbreviated as follows: Vin. Ab. 
Abatement, pl. 3. 
     2. Placita, is the style of the English courts at the beginning of the 
record of Nisi Prius; in this sense, placita are divided into pleas of the 
crown, and common pleas. 
     3. The word is used by continental writers to signify jurisdictions, 
judgments, or assemblies for discussing causes. It occurs frequently in the 
laws of the Longobards, in which there is a title de his qui ad, placitum 
venire coguntur. The word, it has been suggested, is derived from the German 
platz, which signifies the same as area facta. See Const. Car. Mag. Cap. IX. 
Hinemar's Epist. 227 and 197. The common formula in most of the 
capitularies is "Placuit atque convenit inter Francos et corum proceres," 
and hence, says Dupin, the laws themselves are often called placita. Dupin, 
Notions sur le Droit, p. 73.