A request by our producer Dave C, we explore how totally on your own you were in Medieval England when the court declared you an outlaw. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What inspired the topic of outlawry in this episode?
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for Dave. And this is a very special short stuff, Chuck, because Dave requested this topic so long ago that I don't even remember when he did.
Yeah. Every once in a while, a colleague will drum up the nerve to approach us very sheepishly with head bowed, say, what do you guys think about this idea? And Josh will wave them away and say, it shall be on the list in seven years time. Yes. Or so.
Right. Give or take seven more years.
We shall do outlawry.
And we are finally. So this one's for you, Dave. And it's a good idea, too, because most people think of outlaws as a specific, you know, like. Like Johnny Cash. Yes, exactly. A lot of people think of Johnny Cash when they think outlaw, don't they? Yeah. Outlaw country music. It's a thing. But this turns out to have been an actual legal standing. Yes. That could be applied to people.
That was not a pleasant thing to have applied to you. And it basically meant that, buddy, you're on your own. It was it was applied at least in a lot of cases to fugitives. But like we think of fugitives today is like people who the U.S. Marshal Service goes and gets like we talked about in Operation Flagship. That kind of falls under the same rubric.
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Chapter 2: What does it mean to be declared an outlaw in medieval England?
But this was a fugitive in that like they were summoned to court. They decided not to come to court. And after a certain procedure, they were declared outlaws and that that meant like the law no longer applies to them. All the protections that are afforded to you are gone. And it does seem a little harsh, I have to say, for just failing to appear in court.
Yeah. It was a long time ago, though. So who knows what was going on back then? Sure. Mainly medieval England is what we're talking about. But the earliest kind of this outlaw status became a law in 6th century Frankish law called the Lex Salica. This was under King Clovis, early 500s. So this is a long, long time ago. And this is basically like, yeah, if you don't respond to a summons –
then you're outside of the king's protection. This kind of started the legal basis for that. But medieval England is where it's sort of most known. If you were over the age of 14 and you were a man, if you were a woman, you were said to be waived, even though it was basically the same thing. But if you were over 14 and you were a male, you could be outlawed.
And basically say, like you said, like, hey, anything you do or anything anyone does to you, rather, like we're not even going to prosecute them. Somebody could break into your house and steal your stuff and you're an outlaw. So sorry, T.S. for you.
Yeah. And so like today, our conception of outlaw or modern conception, like, say, applying to Johnny Cash, like you said, or Jesse James or even Robin Hood, they're not types to show up to a legal summit. So they definitely do kind of fall into that same category. But we kind of have it backwards in that we we think of those people as like they chose a life of crime outside the law. Right.
They're outlaws. Right. But in reality, with outlawry, the law itself has withdrawn itself from you and left you outside the law. Kind of in a really catty turn, the law is like, oh, you don't recognize my jurisdiction over you. You're not going to come to court when we ask you to. Well, then fine. I guess you don't need my protections anymore either. Hence, you're an outlaw.
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Chapter 3: How was the process of declaring someone an outlaw carried out?
Exactly. And you mentioned a process. There was a process. It wasn't immediate. It was a pretty slow process even. But what would happen is the sheriff of wherever you were would locate these fugitives. They would do some investigating, see if they owned any property that they could get. to basically say like, hey, we've got your, you know, your stash of chickens.
Come to court, maybe you'll get those chickens back. If that never happens and they can't get them to come to court or whatever, then the sheriff has to sit through this five different times in court calling, you know, the fugitive to come forward. And after the fifth non-appearance, then they hit the gavel or drop the glove or whatever the heck they did back then and said, you, sir, are an outlaw.
Yeah. And it was a big deal to be declared outlaws. We'll see. I say we take our little break. Let's do it. Come back and talk about outlawry a little more. How about that?
Let's do it.
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Hey, Will. Do you ever get overwhelmed by how much science happens these days? Constantly. I'm like, ah, there's so much science.
I can't keep track of it all.
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Chapter 4: What are the consequences of being declared an outlaw?
In a paper called, quote, Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans. Right.
This was actually the title of the paper.
They all discovered that much like humans, chickens are attracted to symmetrical faces. Got it. We're talking medical miracles.
He's an endocrinologist who found a way to stimulate insulin-producing cells using, wait for it, the saliva of a Gila monster.
There's no way to make that not sound crazy.
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Okay, so when you were declared an outlaw, essentially the way I saw it written was that it amounted to a conviction as well as an extinction of civil rights. So there were different kinds of outlawry. Just failing to appear in court seemed like outlaw light, spelled L-I-T-E. But there was also major outlawry, in which case you were really in trouble.
Like big felonies, treason, rebellion, like big deal stuff. could have you labeled a major outlaw. And again, like if they did find your cache of chickens, those were theirs now. They could take them. Any like real property you had, anything that was yours, they could seize and keep. And that's pretty standard stuff even still today.
Like if you get caught with suspected drug money, the sheriff just keeps your money and says, prove it's not drug money. That's not like completely out of the norm. The thing that really makes outlawry very surprising to us today is anybody could come and take your property. Anybody could come and beat you up and kill you.
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