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An 'outlaw' is a person living the lifestyle of 'outlawry', meaning literally "outside the law." In the common law of England, a judgment declaring someone an outlaw was one of the harshest penalties in the legal system, since the outlaw could not use the legal system to protect himself if needed, such as from mob justice.
Though the judgment of outlawry is now obsolete (even though it inspired the ''pro forma'' Outlawries Bill which is still to this day introduced in the British House of Commons during the State Opening of Parliament), romanticised outlaws became stock characters in several fictional settings, particularly in Western movies. Thus, "outlaw" is still commonly used for those living that lifestyle, whether actual criminals evading the law or those merely opposed to "law-and-order" notions of authority (such as the "outlaw country" movement in the 1970's).

Contents

A feature of older legal systems

Famous outlaws

American Western outlaws

Canada

Asian

Middle East

British

Spanish ''bandoleros''

Serbian hajduks

New Zealand

France

Slovakia

Russia

Fugitives: Contemporary outlaws

Others

See also

References

A feature of older legal systems

In British common law, an outlaw was a person who had defied the laws of the realm, by such acts as ignoring a summons to court, or fleeing instead of appearing to plead when charged with a crime. In the earlier law of Anglo-Saxon England, outlawry was also declared when a person committed a homicide and could not pay the weregild, the blood-money, due to the victim's kin. Outlawry also existed in other legal codes of the time, such as the ancient Norse and Icelandic legal code.
To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of civil death. The outlaw was debarred from all civilized society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any other sort of support — to do so was to commit the crime of aiding and abetting, and to be in danger of the ban oneself. An outlaw might be killed with impunity; and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill a thief flying from justice — to do so was not murder. A man who slew a thief was expected to declare the fact without delay, otherwise the dead man’s kindred might clear his name by their oath and require the slayer to pay weregild as for a true man^[1] Because the outlaw has defied civil society, that society was quit of any obligations to the outlaw —outlaws had no civil rights, could not sue in any court on any cause of action, though they were themselves personally liable.
In the context of criminal law, outlawry faded not so much by legal changes as by the greater population density of the country, which made it harder for wanted fugitives to evade capture; and by the international adoption of extradition pacts. In the civil context, outlawry became obsolescent in civil procedure by reforms that no longer required summoned defendants to appear and plead. Still, the possibility of being declared an outlaw for derelictions of civil duty continued to exist in English law until 1879 and in Scots law until the late 1940s. Prior to the Nuremberg Trials, the British jurist Lord Chancellor John Allsebrook Simon attempted to resurrect the concept of outlawry in order to provide for summary executions of captured Nazi war criminals. Although Simon's point of view was supported by Winston Churchill, American and Soviet attorneys insisted on a trial, and he was thus overruled.

Famous outlaws

The stereotype owes a great deal to English folklore precedents, in the tales of Robin Hood and of gallant highwaymen. But outlawry was once a term of art in the law, and one of the harshest judgments that could be pronounced on anyone's head.
The outlaw is familiar to contemporary readers as an archetype in Western movies, depicting the lawless expansionism period of the United States in the late 19th century. The Western outlaw is typically a criminal who operates from a base in the wilderness, and opposes, attacks or disrupts the fragile institutions of new settlements.

American Western outlaws

★ Joaquin Murietta

★ The Sundance Kid

★ William Quantrill

★ Jim Miller

★ Sam Bass

★ Kid Curry

★ Butch Cassidy

★ Billy the Kid

★ Jesse James

★ Cole Younger

★ Marlow Brothers Outlaw

★ Belle Starr

★ Black Jack

★ Black Bart

★ John Daly (outlaw)
=== Great Depression ===

★ John Dillinger

★ Bonnie and Clyde

★ Ma Barker

Canada

★ Simon Gunanoot

★ Slumach

★ Allan McLean

★ Bill Miner
=== Norse ===

★ Erik the Red

★ Gísli Súrsson

★ Grettir Ásmundarson

Asian

★ Zhang Xianzhong - nicknamed ''Yellow Tiger'', was a Chinese bandit and rebel leader who conquered Sichuan Province in the middle of the 17th century.

★ Song Jiang - Historical Chinese outlaw immortalised in the classic ''Water Margin''

★ Hong Gildong - Historical/legendary Korean outlaw

★ Ishikawa Goemon - Legendary Japanese thief featured in kabuki plays

★ Wong Fei Hung - Famous Chinese herbal medicinist considered an outlaw hero in Chinese folklore

★ Veerappan, Tamil bandit

★ Fudayl ibn Iyad - famous highwayman of Khurasan who repented and traveled in search of knowledge. He is revered by Muslims as a major figure of early Sufism.

Middle East

★ Ya'qub-i Laith Saffari - rose from a bandit to the rule of much of modern Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan

British

★ Dick Turpin - 18th Century Highwayman

★ Sawney Beane - Scottish outlaw

★ Edgar the Outlaw - English king

★ Robin Hood - Legendary Medieval English outlaw

★ Eustace Folville - English outlaw and soldier

★ Adam the Leper - Fourteenth-century English gang-leader

★ William Wallace - Leader of the Scottish resistance to Edward I.

★ Rob Roy MacGregor - Scottish Chieftain.

★ Twm Siôn Cati - Welsh Outlaw from Tregaron in Tudor times, ended up mayor of Brecon

Spanish ''bandoleros''

★ Perot Rocaguinarda, Catalan bandit

★ El Tempranillo, Andalusian'' bandolero''

★ El Pernales, Andalusian'' bandolero''

Serbian hajduks

★ Jovo Stanisavljevic Caruga, Serb

★ Joco Udmanic, Serb
===Australian bushrangers===

★ Ned Kelly

★ Martin Cash

★ Ben Hall

★ Frank Gardiner

★ Captain Thunderbolt

★ Dan Morgan

★ Jack the Rammer

★ Mary Ann Bugg

★ Moondyne Joe

★ William Westwood aka Jackey Jackey

New Zealand

★ James Mckenzie Shepherd, drover, sheepstealer [1]

★ Te_Kooti Maori warrior & leader

France

★ Louis Dominique Cartouche - famous French bandit.

Slovakia

★ Juraj Jánošík

Russia

★ Joseph Stalin - led "fighting squads" in bank robberies to raise funds for the Bolshevik Party.
===Turkish Efe and Eşkıyas===

★ İnce Memed, a legendary fictional character by Yaşar Kemal

★ Atçalı Kel Mehmet Efe, an outlaw who led a local revolt against Ottoman Empire

★ Çakırcalı Mehmet Efe, one of the most powerful outlaws of late Ottoman era

Fugitives: Contemporary outlaws

★ Eric Robert Rudolph

Others

★ Phoolan Devi

★ Lampião (Brazil)

★ Giuseppe Musolino (Italian outlaw/ folk hero)

★ Nightingale the Robber (Russian myth)

★ Jack the Robber (Roma)

★ Cercyon (Greek), a bandit killed by Theseus

★ Kassa Hailu, later Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia

★ Napoleon by the coalition in Vienna

★ When the government of the First Spanish Republic was unable to reduce the Cantonalist rebellion centered in Cartagena, Spain, the Cartagena fleet was declared piratic, allowing any nation to prey on it.

★ Toño Bicicleta (Bicycle Tony), A notorious bicycle-riding Puerto Rican criminal who became an element of local folklore.

★ Martin Luther was declared an outlaw by the Diet of Worms
===Outlaw Musicians===

★ Waylon Jennings

★ Willie Nelson

★ Merle Haggard

★ David Allan Coe

See also

★ Vigilante

★ Robbery

★ Pirate

★ Highwayman

★ Hajduk

★ Outlaw motorcycle club

★ Social bandits, a term invented by Eric Hobsbawm

★ Shanlin

★ Thug

★ Dacoit

References

1. F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, ''The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I'' (1895, 2nd. ed., Cambridge, 1898, reprinted 1968).