Definition
In Roman law, a person whose civic reputation was formally diminished by law, resulting in the loss of certain rights of citizenship. The status of infamis attached either because of a person's disreputable occupation or because of conviction for a qualifying crime. A person bearing this status was not simply dishonored in a social sense — the designation carried concrete legal consequences, including disqualification from acting as a witness, bringing certain legal actions, or holding public office.
The term is the Latin noun form; the corresponding abstract status is infamia.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Infamous" — well known for a bad quality or deed; notoriously bad.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Infamous" — having a reputation of the worst kind; held in abhorrence; publicly branded with disgrace; as, an infamous traitor; an infamous vice.
The gap here is significant. In ordinary English, "infamous" describes moral reputation and carries no formal legal weight. In Roman law, infamis was a juridical classification — a status conferred by law, not merely by public opinion. A person could be widely despised without being legally infamis, and the consequences of the legal status flowed from the law's pronouncement, not from community sentiment.
Common Confusion
Infamis is sometimes loosely equated with modern concepts of "infamous crime" or "moral turpitude," but these are distinct traditions. The Anglo-American doctrine of infamous crimes — which affects competency as a witness or eligibility for certain offices — draws historical inspiration from the Roman concept but operates under different rules and has its own independent development in common law and constitutional doctrine. Researchers should not assume that a common-law source using "infamous" intends the technical Roman classification.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of Roman law that appears in legal dictionaries, civil law treatises, and occasionally in the scholarly apparatus of common-law works when tracing the historical roots of witness competency rules or the concept of civic disability. Researchers will encounter it most often in:
— Civil law and mixed-jurisdiction materials. Sources dealing with Louisiana, Quebec, Scotland, or continental European legal systems may use infamis or infamia in a live doctrinal sense, not merely historically.
— Historical foundations of witness disqualification. Common-law courts historically excluded certain persons from testifying on grounds of infamy. Tracing that doctrine backward leads directly to Roman infamia, and sources spanning that bridge may use the Latin term without explanation.
— Constitutional "infamous crime" research. The Fifth Amendment's grand jury clause applies to "infamous" crimes. Courts and scholars working through the history of that phrase sometimes reach back to the Roman category. Researchers should track the concept carefully — the constitutional meaning was shaped by English common law, not Roman law directly.
— Glossaries and institutional works. Institutional civil law writers (Gaius, Justinian's Institutes, later civilians) use infamis as a technical term. Any research into Roman-derived private law will encounter it in that context.
The term is effectively historical in most modern legal systems but remains analytically active in comparative law and legal history scholarship.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary defines infamis as a person whose right of reputation was diminished, resulting in loss of some rights of citizenship, either on account of infamous avocation or conviction for crime, citing Mackeldey's Roman Law. This is the standard institutional account and accurately captures the dual pathway to the status — occupational infamy (affecting actors, prostitutes, gladiators, and similar figures under Roman social classification) and criminal infamy (following conviction for certain offenses).
Burrill's entry is incomplete in the available source material, breaking off after the Latin derivation (from in, privative, and — likely fama, meaning reputation or fame). The derivation is accurate and instructive: infamis literally means one without fama, the Roman concept of public standing or reputation, which had both social and legal dimensions.
Neither dictionary fully captures the internal Roman law distinction between infamia iuris (infamy by operation of law, arising automatically from certain acts or judgments) and infamia facti (infamy in fact, based on community judgment without formal legal effect). This distinction matters for researchers working with primary Roman sources or sophisticated civilian commentators.
Jurisdictional Note
Infamis as a live legal category belongs to Roman law and its civilian successors. In Anglo-American jurisdictions, the concept influenced but did not directly transplant. Civil law jurisdictions with Roman law foundations may retain cognate doctrines under modern terminology. Researchers should not treat the Roman category as directly applicable in any contemporary common-law system.