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''Vogelfrei'' ( nl, Vogelvrij and af, Voëlvry) in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
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 In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute
Persec ...
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 Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...
(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 Unive ...
(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 th ...
'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
''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
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''
Maria_Theresa">/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 ...
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 completio ...
''.
See also
*Knight-errant
A knight-errant (or knight errant) is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. The adjective '' errant'' (meaning "wandering, roving") indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adventures to prove his chivalric ...
*Mopery
Mopery () is a vague, informal name for minor offenses. The word is based on the verb ''to mope'', which originally meant "to wander aimlessly"; it only later acquired the sense "to be bored and depressed". The word ''mope'' appears to have first ...
*Troubadour
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairit ...
*Vagrancy (people)
Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, waste picker, scavenging, petty t ...
*Wandervogel
''Wandervogel'' (plural: ''Wandervögel''; English: "Wandering Bird") is the name adopted by a popular movement of German youth groups from 1896 to 1933, who protested against industrialization by going to hike in the country and commune with n ...
Notes
References
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{{Conformity
Euphemisms
Legal history of the Holy Roman Empire
Legal aspects of death