The Customs of Old England by F. J. Snell

Author:F. J. Snell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: english, history, middle ages, medieval, ecclesiastical, academic, judicial
ISBN: 9781781664445
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

OUTLAWRY

Many of our ancient ballads and lyrics, such as the cycle of Robin Hood and that exquisite love-poem "The Nut-Brown Maid," are based on the custom of outlawry. One of the most charming of these early English productions is "The Tale of Gamelyn," in which we meet with the following passage alluding to the ban:

"Tho were his bonde-men sory and nothing glad, When Gamelyn her lord wolues heed was cried and maad; And sente out of his men, wher they might him fynde, For to seke Gamelyn vnder woode-lynde, To telle him tydinges, how the wynd was went, And al his good reued, and alle his men schent."

The expression "wolf's head" was an old Saxon formula of outlawry, and appears to have originated from the circumstance that a price was set on the fugitive equivalent to that at which a wolf's head was estimated. One of the laws of Edward the Confessor deals with the case of a person who has fled justice, and pronounces: "Si postea repertus fuerit et teneri possit, vivus regi reddatur, vel caput ipsius si se defenderit; lupinum enim caput geret a die utlagacionis sue, quod ab Anglis wlvesheved nominatur. Et hec sententia communis est de omnibus utlagis."

Already we are in possession of the salient facts as regards outlawry. As a rule the outlaw was not banished, as citizens were ostracized at Athens, to secure the State from dangerous rivalries. In other words, they were commonly not men of character and distinction, but just the reverse - persons whose conduct was so destitute of honour as to degrade them, in the eyes of the community, to the level of the worst sort of vermin. And they were treated accordingly. They were held to be unfit to exist as an integral part of the body politic, and either destroyed or, as an alternative, constrained to abjure the realm. The head and front of their offence was not any act of which they might have been guilty. The direct, and, it may be said, the sole, cause of their proscription was refusal to submit to the laws, to accept justice at the hands of their country-men.

This comes out quite distinctly in the legislative enactments of our remote ancestors. Kemble in his "Saxons in England" quotes the following law of King Edgar:

"That a thief be pursued, if necessary. If there be present need, let it be told the hundred men, and let them afterwards make it known to the tithing men and let them all go forth whither God may direct them to their end; let them all do justice on the thief as it was formerly Eadmund's law. And be the ceapgild (i.e., market value) paid to him that owns the chattel; and be the rest divided in two, half to the hundred, half to the lord except men; and let the lord take possession of the men.

"And if any neglect this and deny the judgment of the hundred, and the same be afterwards proved against him,

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