outlaw: Definition, Synonyms from Answers.com

For other senses of this word, see outlaw (disambiguation).

Butch Cassidy, a famous Western American outlaw

An outlaw is a person living the lifestyle of outlawry, meaning literally "outside the law". In the common law of England, a judgment declaring someone an outlaw was one of the harshest penalties in the legal system, since the outlaw could not use the legal system to protect himself if needed, such as from mob justice.

Social Banditry perhaps best describes the "outlaw." Social Banditry was a paradigm first described by Eric Hobsbawn to illustrate rural peseantry in 18th century England through an uprising against bread prices (also the example of Robin Hood comes to mind). The core essence of what constitutes this paradigm is a restoration of harmony through a "moral economy." Outlaws usually stand for something that aught to be, in their own minds, morally right. This restoration of harmony usually takes form in unorthodox attempts, and "outside the law." They are concequently protected by those who support the effort and valorized by the people. This in turn created problems for the lawful citizens or rulers trying to put down what they percieve to be a rebellion.

Though the judgment of outlawry is now obsolete (even though it inspired the pro forma Outlawries Bill which is still to this day introduced in the British House of Commons during the State Opening of Parliament), romanticised outlaws became stock characters in several fictional settings, particularly in Western movies. Thus, "outlaw" is still commonly used for those living that lifestyle, whether actual criminals evading the law or those merely opposed to "law-and-order" notions of authority (such as the "outlaw country" movement in the 1970's).

A feature of older legal systems

In British common law, an outlaw was a person who had defied the laws of the realm, by such acts as ignoring a summons to court, or fleeing instead of appearing to plead when charged with a crime. In the earlier law of Anglo-Saxon England, outlawry was also declared when a person committed a homicide and could not pay the weregild, the blood-money, due to the victim's kin. Outlawry also existed in other legal codes of the time, such as the ancient Norse and Icelandic legal code.

To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of civil death. The outlaw was debarred from all civilized society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any other sort of support — to do so was to commit the crime of aiding and abetting, and to be in danger of the ban oneself. An outlaw might be killed with impunity; and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill a thief flying from justice — to do so was not murder. A man who slew a thief was expected to declare the fact without delay, otherwise the dead man’s kindred might clear his name by their oath and require the slayer to pay weregild as for a true man^[1] Because the outlaw has defied civil society, that society was quit of any obligations to the outlaw —outlaws had no civil rights, could not sue in any court on any cause of action, though they were themselves personally liable.

In the context of criminal law, outlawry faded not so much by legal changes as by the greater population density of the country, which made it harder for wanted fugitives to evade capture; and by the international adoption of extradition pacts. In the civil context, outlawry became obsolescent in civil procedure by reforms that no longer required summoned defendants to appear and plead. Still, the possibility of being declared an outlaw for derelictions of civil duty continued to exist in English law until 1879 and in Scots law until the late 1940s. Prior to the Nuremberg Trials, the British jurist Lord Chancellor John Allsebrook Simon attempted to resurrect the concept of outlawry in order to provide for summary executions of captured Nazi war criminals. Although Simon's point of view was supported by Winston Churchill, American and Soviet attorneys insisted on a trial, and he was thus overruled.

Famous outlaws

Lampião, a famous bandit (turned into popular myth) of Brazilian Cangaço

The stereotype owes a great deal to English folklore precedents, in the tales of Robin Hood and of gallant highwaymen. But outlawry was once a term of art in the law, and one of the harshest judgments that could be pronounced on anyone's head.

The outlaw is familiar to contemporary readers as an archetype in Western movies, depicting the lawless expansionism period of the United States in the late 19th century. The Western outlaw is typically a criminal who operates from a base in the wilderness, and opposes, attacks or disrupts the fragile institutions of new settlements.

American Western

See also: List of Western Outlaws

American Great Depression

Australian

British

Dick Turpin - 18th century Highwayman
Sawney Beane - Scottish outlaw
Edgar the Outlaw - English king
Robin Hood - Legendary Medieval English outlaw
Eustace Folville - English outlaw and soldier
Adam the Leper - Fourteenth-century English gang-leader
William Wallace - Leader of the Scottish resistance to Edward I.
Rob Roy MacGregor - Scottish Chieftain.
Twm Siôn Cati - Welsh Outlaw from Tregaron in Tudor times, ended up mayor of Brecon

Asian

Zhang Xianzhong - nicknamed Yellow Tiger, was a Chinese bandit and rebel leader who conquered Sichuan Province in the middle of the 17th century.
Song Jiang - Historical Chinese outlaw immortalised in the classic Water Margin
Hong Gildong - Historical/legendary Korean outlaw
Ishikawa Goemon - Legendary Japanese thief featured in kabuki plays
Wong Fei Hung - Famous Chinese herbal medicinist considered an outlaw hero in Chinese folklore
Veerappan, Tamil bandit
Fudayl ibn Iyad - famous highwayman of Khurasan who repented and traveled in search of knowledge. He is revered by Muslims as a major figure of early Sufism.
Ya'qub-i Laith Saffari - rose from a bandit to the rule of much of modern Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan

Irish

Canadian

Norse

Russian

Nightingale the Robber - myth
Yermak Timofeyevich - 16th century Cossack outlaw and explorer
Joseph Stalin - led "fighting squads" in bank robberies to raise funds for the Bolshevik Party.

Spanish

Perot Rocaguinarda, Catalan bandit
El Tempranillo, Andalusian bandolero
El Pernales, Andalusian bandolero

Turkish

İnce Memed, a legendary fictional character by Yaşar Kemal
Atçalı Kel Mehmet Efe, an outlaw who led a local revolt against Ottoman Empire
Çakırcalı Mehmet Efe, one of the most powerful outlaws of late Ottoman era

New Zealander

James Mckenzie Shepherd, drover, sheepstealer [1]
Te_Kooti Maori warrior & leader

Serbian

Jovo Stanisavljevic Caruga, Serb
Joco Udmanic, Serb

Others

Eric Robert Rudolph (contemporary outlaw)
Phoolan Devi
Lampião (Brazil)
Jack the Robber (Roma)
Juraj Jánošík (Slovakia)
Václav Babinský (Czech outlaw)
Johann Georg Grasel (Moravia)
Sobri Jóska (Hungarian highwayman)
Giuseppe Musolino (Italian outlaw/ folk hero)
Louis Dominique Cartouche (famous French bandit)
Cercyon (Greek), a bandit killed by Theseus
Kassa Hailu, later Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia
Napoleon by the coalition in Vienna
When the government of the First Spanish Republic was unable to reduce the Cantonalist rebellion centered in Cartagena, Spain, the Cartagena fleet was declared piratic, allowing any nation to prey on it.
Toño Bicicleta (Bicycle Tony), A notorious bicycle-riding Puerto Rican criminal who became an element of local folklore.
Martin Luther was declared an outlaw by the Diet of Worms
Nelson Mandela fought for black rights in South Africa

Outlaw Musicians

References

^ F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (1895, 2nd. ed., Cambridge, 1898, reprinted 1968).

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Donate to Wikimedia

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Antonyms. © 1999-2008 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more
		Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Outlaw". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

outlaw