Definition
Latin. "Goods of felons." In English law, bona felonum refers to the personal property of a person convicted of felony, which upon conviction was forfeited to the Crown or to a lord holding the relevant franchise right. The doctrine reflects the medieval principle that a felon, having offended against the sovereign order, forfeited not only liberty but also property. Goods subject to forfeiture included chattels and movable personal property in the felon's possession at the time of conviction.
Why It Matters in Research
Bona felonum is a term of exclusively historical English law with no modern operational counterpart in American or contemporary English legal practice. Researchers encountering it in older texts, case reports, or treatises should understand it as a product of the feudal forfeiture system, which was progressively dismantled in England over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In American law, criminal forfeiture developed along entirely different statutory lines and the bona felonum doctrine was never transplanted.
The principal research trap is conflating bona felonum with the broader doctrine of attainder and corruption of blood, which operated on different rules and extended to real property as well as goods. Bona felonum speaks specifically to personal property forfeiture upon felony conviction; it does not reach lands, which were governed by the separate doctrine of escheat and forfeiture of freehold. A researcher working in early English case reports or Year Books must hold this distinction clearly.
A secondary trap involves the franchise dimension. The Crown's right to bona felonum could be granted to a subject lord by royal charter, so that within a given manor or liberty, the lord rather than the Crown received the felon's goods. Franchise grants of this kind appear frequently in medieval and early modern records and can make it appear that a private party is exercising what looks like state forfeiture power. This is a recurring feature of English legal history, not an anomaly.
The term appears in the context of other forfeiture doctrines — deodand, bona waviata (goods of waifs), bona fugitivorum (goods of fugitives) — that together formed the English law of involuntary property divestiture. Understanding bona felonum requires awareness of this family of terms.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill are in complete agreement: bona felonum means "goods of felons" or "the goods of one convicted of felony." All three treat it as a term of English law with no ambiguity as to its meaning or application. The uniformity is unsurprising given the term's narrow historical scope.
All three sources cite 5 Coke 110 as authority — a reference to Coke's Reports, a foundational source of early modern English common law doctrine. This convergence on a single authority reflects how thoroughly the doctrine was fixed in its classical form by the time these dictionaries were compiled.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the franchise dimension — the mechanism by which lords could hold bona felonum as a grant from the Crown — nor do they explore the procedural requirements for conviction that triggered forfeiture, or the gradual legislative erosion of the doctrine. Researchers needing that depth should consult Blackstone's Commentaries (Book IV) and the English forfeiture statutes of the nineteenth century, particularly the Forfeiture Act 1870, which abolished forfeiture of goods upon felony conviction in England.
Jurisdictional Note
Bona felonum is a term of English law only and was never adopted as a doctrine in American jurisdictions. American criminal forfeiture law developed through distinct constitutional and statutory frameworks, including in rem civil forfeiture and modern criminal forfeiture statutes. Encountering bona felonum in American sources before the mid-nineteenth century almost certainly signals reference to English precedent or historical commentary, not operative American law.