Definition
In civil law and old English law, fama denotes fame, character, reputation, or common report — specifically, the prevailing opinion of a community regarding an individual's character or conduct. The term carries both a general sense (reputation as a social standing) and a procedural sense (common report as a basis for legal action or suspicion).
In its procedural use, fama referred to the public report or rumor that could, in earlier legal systems, serve as a foundation for criminal accusation or inquisition. Under this doctrine, a person might be brought before a court on the strength of widespread community report alone — but only if that report arose from credible sources. The maxim preserved in Bracton and cited in Coke captures the requirement precisely: the report must arise apud bonos et graves — among persons of good character and standing — not from the malicious or slanderous, and it must be persistent rather than a single rumor, because clamor diminishes and defamation makes things manifest.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): In modern English, fama is rarely used outside classical or mythological contexts. Wiktionary identifies it primarily as the Roman personification of fame and renown, the equivalent of the Greek Pheme — a goddess figure, not a legal concept.
Historical common usage: The English word "fame" derives directly from the Latin fama, and in Webster's 1913 carries meanings of public report, reputation, and renown — close to but not identical with the legal term.
Editorial note: The gap matters. In ordinary English, "fame" is almost always positive — celebrity, renown. In legal usage, fama is neutral and often tilts toward suspicion: it is community report that may or may not be favorable, and its procedural function was to initiate scrutiny, not to honor. A researcher encountering fama in a legal source should resist the modern connotation of celebrity and read it as common reputation, which in context was frequently the reputation of a suspected wrongdoer.
Common Confusion
Fama is sometimes read as equivalent to infamia, but the two are distinct. Fama is reputation in the neutral or general sense — the community's standing opinion of a person. Infamia is its formal legal negation: the specific loss of legal standing or civic rights resulting from conviction of certain offenses or from conduct deemed dishonorable. A person could have poor fama without suffering infamia in the technical sense, and the procedural significance of each differs sharply in civil law sources.
Why It Matters in Research
Fama is a term of art that surfaces in three distinct research contexts, each requiring different handling.
First, in medieval English criminal procedure, fama patriae — the fame or report of the country — appears as a precursor to the indictment process. Bracton treats it as one of the bases on which a person could be called to answer before a court. Researchers working in early common law sources (pre-1300 through approximately 1500) will encounter fama as a procedural trigger, not merely a descriptive word. Do not read it as simply "reputation."
Second, in canon law and civil law sources, fama functions as a component of the inquisitorial procedure — the diffamatio or spreading of fama could initiate ecclesiastical proceedings. Researchers using Law Mind sources that touch canon law or the continental civil law tradition need to track whether fama is being used in the procedural sense or the general reputational sense, because the legal consequences differ.
Third, the maxim embedded in the Black's entries — that qualifying fama must arise from persons of good character, not once but repeatedly — is an evidentiary standard embedded in Latin. Researchers who encounter this maxim in abbreviated or paraphrased form in English-language sources should recognize it as a reference to this credibility and persistence requirement, not simply a general statement about reputation.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry in the source material is a mismatch: it defines GESTUM rather than FAMA, suggesting an indexing or transcription error in that volume. Researchers should not rely on that source for this term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Burrill's converge on the core meaning: fama as fame, character, reputation, and common report. Burrill's adds the most procedural depth, citing Bracton directly for the fama patriae doctrine and noting the apud bonos et graves qualification. Bouvier's is minimal — rumor, report, fame — without procedural context, which understates the term's legal function.
Black's (2nd Ed.) preserves two maxims worth noting. The first, from Bulstrode's reports, Fama, fides et oculus non patiuntur ludum — fame, faith, and eyesight do not suffer a cheat — treats fama as a kind of reliable social knowledge not easily deceived. The second, attributed to Coke's Institutes, lays out the credibility requirements for legally operative fama and is the most doctrinally useful passage in the historical entries.
None of the historical dictionaries adequately flag the canon law dimension of fama, which is significant for researchers working in ecclesiastical court records or mixed civil-canon law jurisdictions.
Jurisdictional Note
Fama as a procedural concept is most relevant to civil law jurisdictions, medieval English common law, and canon law. It does not survive as a term of art in modern American or English common law, where reputation-based legal concepts are expressed through defamation, character evidence rules, and related doctrines. Researchers working in Spanish law sources will also encounter fama through Las Partidas, where it carries a similar meaning of character and standing.