Definition
An archaic term from Old English law denoting a runaway, fugitive, or person who has escaped from justice. The term also applied to one who had no "hlaford" — that is, no lord or recognized master within the Anglo-Saxon social and legal order. The companion term "flymanfrymth" (or "flyman frymth") described the separate offense of harboring such a fugitive.
Why It Matters in Research
FLYMA appears almost exclusively in sources dealing with Anglo-Saxon and early Norman legal institutions. Researchers will encounter it in historical and antiquarian treatments of pre-Conquest English law rather than in case law or statutory materials. Its primary research value is contextual: understanding flyma illuminates the feudal and manorial mechanisms of social control, since a person without a lord occupied an inherently suspect legal status — without the accountability structure that lordship provided, such a person was effectively outside the law's protective framework as well as its disciplinary one.
The paired concept of flymanfrymth is worth noting separately. Harboring a flyma was itself a recognized offense, reflecting the broader principle in early English law that concealing or sheltering fugitives from justice transferred a degree of culpability to the harborer. This structure — fugitive status plus harboring liability — anticipates principles that persist in much later accessory and harboring law, making the term a useful historical anchor for those tracing the doctrinal lineage of those concepts.
Researchers using digitized or transcribed versions of early English legal texts should be alert to spelling variation. Forms including "flyman," "flema," and "flyman" appear across different manuscript traditions and editorial transcriptions. Bouvier cites "Anc. Inst." (Ancient Institutions) as his source, and Black's entries across editions are substantively identical, suggesting both drew from the same antiquarian stream rather than independent sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries converge on the same core meaning: a runaway or fugitive from justice, or one without a lord. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) track each other nearly verbatim. Bouvier adds the explicit companion term "flymanfrymth" and its definition as the offense of harboring, which is the most substantively useful addition across the three sources.
None of the historical dictionary entries provide extended analysis or trace how the concept functioned procedurally within Anglo-Saxon courts. For deeper treatment, researchers should consult primary antiquarian sources on Anglo-Saxon legal institutions rather than relying on dictionary entries alone. The historical dictionaries treat this as a vocabulary item rather than a doctrine requiring explanation, which is appropriate given that the term had no living legal application by the time those dictionaries were compiled.