Definition
A Latin term from old English law meaning outlawry — the formal legal process by which a person was declared outside the protection of the law. One who had been subjected to exlegalitas was an outlaw: stripped of legal standing, deprived of the ability to seek judicial remedy, and exposed to seizure of property or, in earlier periods, to killing without legal consequence to the killer. The term derives from exlex (literally, "out of law"), denoting a condition in which the ordinary legal order ceased to apply to or protect the individual.
Common Confusion
Exlegalitas describes the status or condition of outlawry as an abstract legal concept; it should not be confused with the procedural mechanism by which outlawry was declared, nor with the fugitive's mere physical absence from jurisdiction. The outlaw was not simply someone who had fled — the declaration itself was a formal legal act producing defined consequences. Researchers encountering the term should also distinguish it from attainder, which carried broader consequences including corruption of blood and forfeiture of estate, and from excommunication, which operated through ecclesiastical rather than secular authority.
Why It Matters in Research
Exlegalitas is a term of historical art with no surviving modern legal counterpart. It appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal sources — primarily medieval and early common law texts — and will not surface in any modern statutory or case law context. Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus should treat it as a gateway term: encountering it in a source signals engagement with the medieval or early modern English legal order, likely in material touching on criminal procedure, forfeiture, or the legal status of persons.
The term's rarity in even historical legal dictionaries is notable. Black's and Burrill's entries are brief and cross-referential rather than substantive, pointing outward to Spelman's Glossarium and, in Burrill's case, to Bacon's works. Researchers seeking fuller treatment must go beyond standard dictionary sources to specialized glossaries of medieval Latin legal terms. Burrill's attribution to Bacon's Revocation of Uses, volume IV, is the most specific textual anchor available across the three source dictionaries, though the connection between outlawry doctrine and that particular work warrants careful attention in context.
Corpus connections: because outlawry as a practice evolved significantly across the medieval, Tudor, and early modern periods, the same underlying concept will appear under variant terminology — utlagaria, utlagatus, and exlex are all encountered in Latin legal texts, while "outlawry" and "putting out of the law" appear in vernacular sources. Researchers should not assume terminological consistency across periods or across Latin and English-language sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition — exlegalitas means outlawry — and all three situate it explicitly in old English law, signaling consensus that the term has no continuing technical application. The entries are among the briefest in the respective dictionaries, reflecting the term's narrow and archaic scope.
The most meaningful divergence is in sourcing. Black's (both editions) cites Spelman as authority, referencing Henry Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum, a recognized and authoritative glossary of medieval Latin legal terms. Burrill's citation is more specific: it anchors the term to Bacon's Works, volume IV, page 248, in the context of the Revocation of Uses, while also noting the etymological root exlex. This secondary source is the richer entry for researchers, though its connection to uses rather than to criminal outlawry procedure is worth scrutinizing.
None of the three entries provides doctrinal content — consequences of the declaration, the procedural steps required, or the historical development of the practice. What the dictionaries supply is identification and classification; substantive research on the doctrine requires external sources.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Outlawry; Legal Status of Persons (Historical)