March 5, 2025 • 11 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah. Every once in a while a colleague will drum
up the nerve to approach us very sheepishly with head bowed,
to 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.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, hey, or so right, give or take seven more years.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
We shall do outlawry.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Like a cat.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yes, exactly. A lot of people think of Johnny Cash
when they think outlaw, don't.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
They, Yeah, outlaw country music. It's a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
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, but you're on your own. It was applied
at least in a lot of cases to fugitives, but
(01:29):
like we think of fugitives today is like people who
the US Marshal Service goes and gets. Like we talked
about an Operation Flagship that kind of falls under the
same rubric, but this was a fugitive and 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
(01:51):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
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 sixth century
Frankish law called the Lex Salica. This was under King
Clovis early five hundreds, So this is a long long
(02:21):
time ago, and this is basically like yet, 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 fourteen and you
were a man. If you were a woman, you were
said to be waived, even though it was basically the
(02:42):
same thing. But if you were over fourteen and you
were a male, you could be outlawed and basically say
like like you said, like hey, anything you do or
anything anyone does to you, rather like we're not even
going to prosecute him. Somebody could break into your house
and steal your stuff and you're an outlaw, so sorry
(03:04):
ts for you.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, And so like today, our conception of outlaw or
modern conceptions 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 summon, so they definitely
do kind of fall into that same category. But we
kind of have it backwards and that we think of
those people as like they chose a life of crime
(03:28):
outside the law right their outlaws, But in reality, with outlawry,
the law itself has withdrawn itself from you and left
you outside the law kind of in a really caddy turn.
The law is like, oh, you don't recognize my jurisdiction
over you're not going to come to court when we
(03:50):
ask you to. Well, then fine, I guess you don't
need my protections anymore either. Hence you're an outlaw exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And you mentioned a process, there was a problems. 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
(04:20):
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
(04:41):
drop the glove or whatever the heck they did back
then and said, you, sir, are an outlaw.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and it was a big deal to be declared outlaws.
We'll see, I say, we take our little break to
come back and talk about outlawry a little more. How
about that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Let's do it. Shot shot.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Okay. So when you were declared an outlaw, essentially, the
way I saw it written was that it's uh, 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,
(05:43):
in which case you were really in trouble, uh, like
big felonies, treason, rebellion, like big deal stuff could have
you labeled a major outlaw. And again like if they
did find your cash 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
(06:07):
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
(06:28):
beat you up and kill you. And because the law
no longer applied to you, there was no law that
was broken when they murdered you. They weren't breaking a law.
You had no protection any longer. And that's the thing
that makes it really kind of shocking as far as
like a legal formality is concerned to us today.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and even if if someone you know, your neighbor
didn't come and rob your house or try and kill
you or something, if you had outlaw status, you were
definitely not a part of the community anymore. You were
totally ostracized and shunned. Sometimes it was just sort of
the way that everyone shunned somebody, which is very quietly
and passive aggressively. Sometimes it was very much official though.
(07:10):
If they had an outlaw they captured, they could say like, hey,
we're going to really ostracize you. We're going to send
you to Australia have fun over there.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, or America. Yeah, and you would end up being
an indentured servant. And one of the other things I
read about that that was kind of interesting, that really
drove the point home. It's not just like I'm an
indentured servant over here now I wish I wasn't. Like,
maybe around your area you might have some sympathetic friends
(07:42):
that might hide you or bring you food out in
the woods or something like that. In America or Australia,
you probably knew no one, so you had no help whatsoever,
and you truly were ostracized. So that in and of
itself was a big deal. Another thing that could happen
to you too, is if the sheriff did catch up
with you, and like there was a very high chance
(08:03):
you were just killed on site, because you it was
a death sentence for you as well, Like they had
no obligation to bring you in. If they wanted to
just kill you and get over with it, the sheriff
could do that too.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
You were so close to saying oz ostracized.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Oh, I walked right past that on purpose. Okay, I
didn't chuck because it's a good one. I'm glad you
pointed it out.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Uh. So this was, you know, usually like real outlaws,
like real criminals, even if it was something like not
appearing in court. You said, it was oftentimes a lot worse.
But it wasn't always that in some countries. I know,
we talked about it in our I think we had
a leprosy episode many years ago. Right. Yeah, in India,
if you had leprosy, you could be banned and ostracized
(08:51):
and essentially get something akin to an outlaw status by
being sent to leper colony where you had where you
didn't have the same rights as everyone else. I think
they call leprosy Hanson's disease, now, is that right? M Yeah,
but no one would know what we meant if we.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Just said that, so probably not a few people would,
and those people were very satisfied that you just said that.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, and I knew the leper was not something that
people say anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
No, Yeah, but yeah, I can't remember who Hanson was.
I think we talked about them in the episode two.
But yeah, that was a long time ago, but it's
a good episode. I haven't heard it in a while.
There were some ways to have your outlaws thats revoked.
One of them was just showing up the court. Yeah,
there was a specific court you had to go to.
It was the King's Bench in London, so you had
(09:41):
to make your way to London and you basically pled
to have it removed. And I think that that was
part of the procedure because again, if you showed up
to the court that had called you in the first place,
you might be murdered, and that would be that Yeah,
so that was I think the initial part of the process,
and there does seem to be like a a pretty
generous amount of forgiveness for you know, lesser crimes I
(10:05):
think like that where you just hadn't shown up, especially
if you're like, I'm sorry my foot, I twisted my
ankle jogging and I just couldn't make it to court,
or you know, my stupid cousin was supposed to take
me but his cart broke down, that kind of thing.
The court would probably take pity on you and remove
your outlaw status because now you were playing ball with them,
(10:28):
which is the whole point of them conferring you an outlaw,
is that you hadn't in the first place. What was
really shocking to me is that this same stuff could
be applied to somebody in a civil case, like somebody's
like this guy stole my chickens, I'm gonna sue you
and you didn't show up. You could also be considered
an outlaw for that too. That's just nuts.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, that is remarkable to hear.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
And it wasn't until eighteen seventy nine that England revoked
that part of their outlaw statute that it couldn't be
used in civil cases anymore. But as far as I know,
and I looked high and low for definitive proof of this,
but just from references I saw, it seems like there's
still outlaw books or outlaw statutes on the books for
(11:14):
criminal acts.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Wow. Yeah, let's get rid of.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Those, sir. Do it? You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, Dave, this was a great idea. Thanks for it.
Short Stuff Is that.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Stuff you Should Know? Is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah. Every once in a while a colleague will drum
up the nerve to approach us very sheepishly with head bowed,
to 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.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yes, hey, or so right, give or take seven more years.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
We shall do outlawry.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Like a cat.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yes, exactly. A lot of people think of Johnny Cash
when they think outlaw, don't.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
They, Yeah, outlaw country music. It's a thing.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
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, but you're on your own. It was applied
at least in a lot of cases to fugitives, but
(01:29):
like we think of fugitives today is like people who
the US Marshal Service goes and gets. Like we talked
about an Operation Flagship that kind of falls under the
same rubric, but this was a fugitive and 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
(01:51):
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.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
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 sixth century
Frankish law called the Lex Salica. This was under King
Clovis early five hundreds, So this is a long long
(02:21):
time ago, and this is basically like yet, 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 fourteen and you
were a man. If you were a woman, you were
said to be waived, even though it was basically the
(02:42):
same thing. But if you were over fourteen and you
were a male, you could be outlawed and basically say
like like you said, like hey, anything you do or
anything anyone does to you, rather like we're not even
going to prosecute him. Somebody could break into your house
and steal your stuff and you're an outlaw, so sorry
(03:04):
ts for you.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, And so like today, our conception of outlaw or
modern conceptions 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 summon, so they definitely
do kind of fall into that same category. But we
kind of have it backwards and that we think of
those people as like they chose a life of crime
(03:28):
outside the law right their outlaws, But in reality, with outlawry,
the law itself has withdrawn itself from you and left
you outside the law kind of in a really caddy turn.
The law is like, oh, you don't recognize my jurisdiction
over you're not going to come to court when we
(03:50):
ask you to. Well, then fine, I guess you don't
need my protections anymore either. Hence you're an outlaw exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And you mentioned a process, there was a problems. 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
(04:20):
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
(04:41):
drop the glove or whatever the heck they did back
then and said, you, sir, are an outlaw.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and it was a big deal to be declared outlaws.
We'll see, I say, we take our little break to
come back and talk about outlawry a little more. How
about that.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Let's do it. Shot shot.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Okay. So when you were declared an outlaw, essentially, the
way I saw it written was that it's uh, 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,
(05:43):
in which case you were really in trouble, uh, like
big felonies, treason, rebellion, like big deal stuff could have
you labeled a major outlaw. And again like if they
did find your cash 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
(06:07):
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
(06:28):
beat you up and kill you. And because the law
no longer applied to you, there was no law that
was broken when they murdered you. They weren't breaking a law.
You had no protection any longer. And that's the thing
that makes it really kind of shocking as far as
like a legal formality is concerned to us today.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and even if if someone you know, your neighbor
didn't come and rob your house or try and kill
you or something, if you had outlaw status, you were
definitely not a part of the community anymore. You were
totally ostracized and shunned. Sometimes it was just sort of
the way that everyone shunned somebody, which is very quietly
and passive aggressively. Sometimes it was very much official though.
(07:10):
If they had an outlaw they captured, they could say like, hey,
we're going to really ostracize you. We're going to send
you to Australia have fun over there.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, or America. Yeah, and you would end up being
an indentured servant. And one of the other things I
read about that that was kind of interesting, that really
drove the point home. It's not just like I'm an
indentured servant over here now I wish I wasn't. Like,
maybe around your area you might have some sympathetic friends
(07:42):
that might hide you or bring you food out in
the woods or something like that. In America or Australia,
you probably knew no one, so you had no help whatsoever,
and you truly were ostracized. So that in and of
itself was a big deal. Another thing that could happen
to you too, is if the sheriff did catch up
with you, and like there was a very high chance
(08:03):
you were just killed on site, because you it was
a death sentence for you as well, Like they had
no obligation to bring you in. If they wanted to
just kill you and get over with it, the sheriff
could do that too.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
You were so close to saying oz ostracized.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Oh, I walked right past that on purpose. Okay, I
didn't chuck because it's a good one. I'm glad you
pointed it out.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Uh. So this was, you know, usually like real outlaws,
like real criminals, even if it was something like not
appearing in court. You said, it was oftentimes a lot worse.
But it wasn't always that in some countries. I know,
we talked about it in our I think we had
a leprosy episode many years ago. Right. Yeah, in India,
if you had leprosy, you could be banned and ostracized
(08:51):
and essentially get something akin to an outlaw status by
being sent to leper colony where you had where you
didn't have the same rights as everyone else. I think
they call leprosy Hanson's disease, now, is that right? M Yeah,
but no one would know what we meant if we.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Just said that, so probably not a few people would,
and those people were very satisfied that you just said that.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, and I knew the leper was not something that
people say anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
No, Yeah, but yeah, I can't remember who Hanson was.
I think we talked about them in the episode two.
But yeah, that was a long time ago, but it's
a good episode. I haven't heard it in a while.
There were some ways to have your outlaws thats revoked.
One of them was just showing up the court. Yeah,
there was a specific court you had to go to.
It was the King's Bench in London, so you had
(09:41):
to make your way to London and you basically pled
to have it removed. And I think that that was
part of the procedure because again, if you showed up
to the court that had called you in the first place,
you might be murdered, and that would be that Yeah,
so that was I think the initial part of the process,
and there does seem to be like a a pretty
generous amount of forgiveness for you know, lesser crimes I
(10:05):
think like that where you just hadn't shown up, especially
if you're like, I'm sorry my foot, I twisted my
ankle jogging and I just couldn't make it to court,
or you know, my stupid cousin was supposed to take
me but his cart broke down, that kind of thing.
The court would probably take pity on you and remove
your outlaw status because now you were playing ball with them,
(10:28):
which is the whole point of them conferring you an outlaw,
is that you hadn't in the first place. What was
really shocking to me is that this same stuff could
be applied to somebody in a civil case, like somebody's
like this guy stole my chickens, I'm gonna sue you
and you didn't show up. You could also be considered
an outlaw for that too. That's just nuts.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, that is remarkable to hear.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
And it wasn't until eighteen seventy nine that England revoked
that part of their outlaw statute that it couldn't be
used in civil cases anymore. But as far as I know,
and I looked high and low for definitive proof of this,
but just from references I saw, it seems like there's
still outlaw books or outlaw statutes on the books for
(11:14):
criminal acts.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Wow. Yeah, let's get rid of.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Those, sir. Do it? You got anything else?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I got nothing else?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, Dave, this was a great idea. Thanks for it.
Short Stuff Is that.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Stuff you Should Know? Is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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