gravamen
A grievance complained of.
They have brought in two Papers, they ſay, in the nature of a Gravamen. I take it to be a Gravamen, and of ill conſequence for the time to come, when we have liberty to give in Reaſons to the Houſes, that they ſhould in writing give in Gravamen's to us.
A grievance complained of. — A document sent by the Lower House of Convocation to the Upper House to inform the latter of certain grievances in the church.
In the mean while, it was reſolved at the Synod, that ſince they muſt wait for the cited Remonſtrants, they would enter upon ſome of the Gravamina, or Points of Grievance which the Churches had laid before the Provincial Synods.
The essence or ground of a complaint.
[P]roperly, no evidence can be read here that was not read below, and if evidence, which ought to have been read there, was rejected, that ought to be the gravamen of the appeal.
The essence or most important aspect of a piece of writing, a point of argument, etc.; the gist.
That neither Dr. Leask, nor myself, acted on such a principle, is the whole gravamen of our opponent's furious assaults upon us.
Where it comes from
Learned borrowing from Late Latin gravāmen (“physical inconvenience”) and Medieval Latin gravāmen (“grievance”), from Latin gravāre + -men (suffix forming neuter nouns of the third declension). Gravāre is the present active infinitive of gravō (“to burden, weigh down; to oppress”), from gravis (“heavy; grave, serious; hard, troublesome”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷreh₂- (“heavy”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). The plural form gravamina is derived from Late Latin gravāmina.
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry gravamen (CC BY-SA 4.0).