Caput lupinum

Caput lupinum or caput gerat lupinum is a term used in the English legal system and its derivatives.[1] The Latin term literally means "wolf's head" or "wolfish head", and refers to a person considered to be an outlaw, as in, e.g., the phrase caput gerat lupinum ("may he wear a wolfish head" / "may his be a wolf's head"). The term was used in Medieval England to designate a person pronounced by the authorities to be a dangerous criminal, who could thus be killed without penalty.[2] The term caput lupinum is first recorded in a law attributed to Edward the Confessor, in the text Leges Edwardi Confessoris. This law stated that a man who refused to answer a summons from the king's justice for a criminal trial would be condemned as a Caput lupinum.[3] The thirteenth-century writer on law, Henry de Bracton, wrote in his book De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae that outlaws "gerunt caput lupinum"- "bear the wolf's head." Bracton added that this meant that outlaws could thus be killed without judicial inquiry. [4] The fourteenth-century English legal textbook The Mirror of Justices stated that anyone who was accused of a felony, who refused three times to attend county courts, would be declared Caput lupinum or "Wolfshead". The book added ""Wolfshead!" shall be cried against him, for that a wolf is a beast hated of all folk; and from that time forward it is lawful for anyone to slay him like a wolf." [2] Black's Law Dictionary, 8th edition (2004: 225) reads "an outlawed felon considered a pariah – a lone wolf – open to attack by anyone." A person designated a caput lupinum was a criminal whose rights had been waived. As such, he or she could be legally harmed by any citizen.

References
  1. Southern Portland Cement v Cooper (Rodney John) (An Infant by his next friend Peter Alphonsus Cooper) Privy Council (Australia), 19 November 1973
  2. Menuge, Noël James (2001). Medieval English Wardship in Romance and Law. Cambridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer. p. 72. ISBN 9780859916325.
  3. O'Brien, Bruce R. (2015). God's Peace and King's Peace : the Laws of Edward the Confessor. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 165. ISBN 9780812234619.
  4. Jones, Timothy Scott (2016). Outlawry in Medieval Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 63. ISBN 9781349536832.


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