Meaning of outfangthief | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A privilege of some feudal lords permitting them to execute summary judgment upon thieves (particularly their own tenants) captured outside their estates and to keep any chattels forfeited upon conviction.
   historical, rare
2. A privilege of some feudal lords permitting them to execute summary judgment upon all thieves captured within their estates, regardless of their origin.
   historical, rare
3. A thief so captured and tried.
   countable, historical, rare

Examples

“A grant of outfangthief imports the trial of those of his fee taken for felony in another precinct.”

“The addition of outfangandthef is much less usual [than infangthief]; it seems to have meant the right to try a man of the barony taken stealing outside the barony, if necessary repledging him to the barony court.”

“But feudalism also contained another principle, and that was, that within his own territory each lord was absolute; his suzerain could not interfere with his jurisdiction; infangthief and outfangthief implied a very perfect and intelligible power of hanging and imprisoning as he pleased.”

CEFR level