''Vogelfrei'' ( nl, Vogelvrij and af, Voëlvry) in German usage denotes the status of a person on whom a legal penalty of

outlawry An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill the ...

has been imposed. However, the original meaning of the term referred to independence, being "free as a bird";

History and etymology

Originally, the word ''vogelfrei'' merely meant "as free as a bird, not bound." That is the usage in a German source from 1455. Even

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

(1483-1546) and

Huldrych Zwingli Huldrych or Ulrich Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland, born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system. He attended the Univ ...

(1484-1531) used the term still in its original meaning. As of the 1507 Bamberg Halsgerichtsordnung (penal code of Bamberg) the term was linked to a person being banned. This resulted from the formulas:

As you have been lawfully judged and banished for murder, so I remove your body and good from the state of peace and rule them strifed and proclaim you free of any redemption and rights ''and I proclaim you as free as the birds in the air'' and the beasts in the forest and the fish in the water, and you shall not have peace nor company on any road or by any ruling of the emperor or king.

and

his body should be free and accessible to all people and beasts, to the birds in the air and the fish in water so that none can be made liable for any crimes committed against him

This ban also implied that persons sentenced thus were not to be granted any dwelling: "Aqua et ignis interdictus" (). In the case of death one's body was not buried, but left for the birds to feed on."permissus avibus" (Latin: free for the birds) The current negative meaning developed only in the 16th century. It then came to predominate through the influence of

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

poetry and of

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of t ...

's ''Deutsche Grammatik'' (German Grammar; 1819). According to modern research the cause for the spreading of the pejorative meaning is not to be sought there but rather in the language of the mercenaries and soldiers of that time. This theory is supported by the loan word "Preis"

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly '' Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and ''Porteresia'', both wild and domesticate ...

in German (, ), which in this context is synonymous with the word "booty". Malicious people would be "''preis gegeben und vogelfrey''" it: given away and free as the birds noted thus as a pair of terms in ''Constitutio criminalis Theresiana'' /nowiki>Maria_Theresa's_Criminal_Law.html" ;"title="Maria_Theresa.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Maria Theresa">/nowiki>Maria Theresa's Criminal Law">Maria_Theresa.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Maria Theresa">/nowiki>Maria Theresa's Criminal Law from 31 December 1768. In ''Das Kapital'', Volume I, Karl Marx uses the term ''vogelfrei'' to refer to the emergence of the proletariat during the decay of feudalism:

The proletariat created by the breaking-up of the bands of feudal retainers and by the forcible expropriation of the people from the soil, this free and rightless* 'vogelfrei''proletariat could not possibly be absorbed by the nascent manufactures as fast as it was thrown upon the world. On the other hand, these men, suddenly dragged from their accustomed mode of life, could not immediately adapt themselves to the discipline of their new condition. They were turned in massive quantities into beggars, robbers and vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases under the force of circumstances. Hence at the end of the fifteenth and during the whole of the sixteenth centuries, a bloody legislation against vagabondage was enforced throughout Western Europe. The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers. Legislation treated them as 'voluntary' criminals, and assumed that it was entirely within their powers to go on working under the old conditions which in fact no longer existed.

Marx calls this second group free or "bird-free" (''vogelfrei''), meaning at one and the same time that while the proletariat are not property (as slaves), they are themselves without property and cast out of the community of property owners.Jason Read, ''Primitive Accumulation: The Aleatory Foundation of Capitalism'', ''Rethinking Marxism'' 14(2), p. 28.

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ca ...

wrote a compilation of poems titled ''Lieder des Prinzen Vogelfrei'' ("Songs of Prince Vogelfrei") and included it as an appendix to ''

The Gay Science ''The Gay Science'' (german: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), sometimes translated as ''The Joyful Wisdom'' or ''The Joyous Science'', is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche published in 1882, and followed by a second edition in 1887 after the completi ...

''.

Notes

References

* * {{Conformity Euphemisms Legal history of the Holy Roman Empire Legal aspects of death

History and etymology

See also

Notes

References