Note 14 — THE LIFE OF ROBIN HOOD.

(14) “An outlaw, in those times, being deprived of protection, owed no allegiance,” &c.] Such a character was, doubtless, at the period treated of, in a very critical situation; it being equally as legal and meritorious to hunt down and dispatch him as it was to kill a wolf, the head of which animal he was said to bear. “Item foris facit,” says Bracton (who wrote about the time), “omnia que pacis sunt, quia a tempore quo utlagatus est caput gerit lupinum, ita ut impune ab omnibus interfici possit” (l. 2, c. 35). In the great roll of the exchequer, in the 7th year of King Richard I., is an allowance by writ of two marks to Thomas de Prestwude, for bringing to Westminster the head of William de Elleford, an outlaw. (See Madox’s History of the Exchequer, 136.) Those who received or consorted with a person outlawed were subject to the same punishment. Such was the humane policy of our enlightened ancestors! See Note 21.