Definition
A Latin term from medieval European and early English law meaning "forfeited" or, more specifically, one who has forfeited something of fundamental legal consequence by reason of crime. The term carries two closely related senses:
1. A criminal who has forfeited his life by commission of a capital offense — in effect, a person who has placed himself outside the law's protection and whose life may be lawfully taken. Spelman's Glossary treats this as the primary sense.
2. More broadly, any person whose legal status or property has been forfeited through criminal conduct. The compound phrase forisfactus servus, noted by Du Cange, refers to a free person reduced to slavery as a consequence of crime — the forfeiture of personal liberty rather than life.
The term derives from forisfacere, meaning to act outside (foris) or to transgress, the root of both forisfactum (the thing forfeited) and forisfactura (the act or condition of forfeiture).
Common Confusion
FORISFACTUS, FORISFACTUM, and FORISFACTURA are closely related Latin forms that appear interchangeably in early sources and are frequently confused. They are distinct: forisfactus is the past participle used as a noun to describe the person who has forfeited (the criminal or outlaw); forisfactum is the object forfeited (the thing or estate); and forisfactura is the abstract condition or act of forfeiture itself. A researcher encountering any of these terms in a medieval English or Continental source should confirm which form is present before drawing conclusions about meaning.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in texts predating the systematization of English common law — Anglo-Saxon and Ripuarian legal codes, glossaries of medieval Latin, and early Norman-influenced records. Researchers working in pre-Conquest or early post-Conquest materials will encounter forisfactus in contexts where the modern concept of attainder would later apply: the complete civil and legal death of the convicted felon. Understanding forisfactus helps trace the conceptual lineage from early Germanic and Roman-influenced forfeiture to the English doctrines of attainder, corruption of blood, and escheat.
The phrase de vita forisfactum interficere — "to slay one who has forfeited his life" — found in the Lex Ribuaria (Leges Ripuariorum, tit. 77) illustrates how forfeiture of life was not merely a metaphor but a recognized legal condition that altered what violence was legally permissible. This has implications for tracing the history of outlawry and the relationship between criminal conviction and civil status.
Researchers should be alert to two traps in historical sources. First, forisfactus in Continental sources (particularly Frankish law) may carry nuances distinct from its use in English ecclesiastical or royal records, where influence from Norman French forfeiture vocabulary (forfaicture) also operates. Second, because Burrill's entry bridges forisfactus and forisfactura in a single note, researchers using that dictionary may find the boundary between the person and the act blurred in secondary commentary.
This term connects directly to the broader corpus on forfeiture, attainder, and outlawry in the Law Mind collection. Any research into the historical foundations of bills of attainder or corruption of blood doctrines should trace back through forisfactus as a conceptual predecessor.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries show a narrow but consistent consensus. Black's (1st ed.) and Rapalje & Lawrence both define forisfactus primarily as a criminal whose life is forfeit by capital offense, both citing Spelman's Glossary as authority. Burrill extends slightly further, offering the gerundive sense ("forfeited" as an adjective) and providing the Lex Ribuaria citation, which gives the term its clearest primary source grounding. Du Cange, cited only in Black's, supplies the forisfactus servus compound, which broadens the picture beyond capital cases to the forfeiture of freedom.
No significant divergence exists across the dictionaries, but collectively they leave a gap: none addresses how the concept functioned procedurally — what adjudication, if any, was required before a person was forisfactus — or how the term transitioned into later English legal vocabulary before disappearing from active use. Burrill's entry is the most substantively useful to researchers because it connects the term to its Latin root (forisfacere) and cross-references forisfactum and forisfactura, providing the relational context the other dictionaries omit.
The second edition of Black's entry for this term is not reproduced usefully in the source material — the excerpt provided relates to forgery legislation and appears to be a scanning artifact from an adjacent entry.
Jurisdictional Note
Forisfactus is a term of historical legal Latin with roots in both English and Continental Germanic law. Its application was not uniform: Frankish and Ripuarian usage reflects Germanic tribal law traditions, while English usage reflects the post-Conquest synthesis of Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and ecclesiastical legal influence. Researchers should not assume that a definition drawn from one tradition applies without adjustment to sources from another.