[1][2] Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben takes the concept as the starting point of his main work Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998).
[5] A direct reference to this status is found in the Twelve Tables (8.21), the laws of the early Roman Republic written in the fifth century BC.
The sense of the Latin adjective sacer both overlaps and also contrasts with the Hebrew concept of ḥērem,[citation needed], "cursed, prohibited.
The idea of the status of an outlaw, a criminal who is declared as unprotected by the law and can consequently be killed by anyone with impunity, persisted throughout the Middle Ages.
Medieval perception condemned the entire human race to the intrinsic moral worth of the outlaw, dehumanizing the outlaw literally as a "wolf" or "wolf's-head" (in an era where hunting of wolves existed strongly, including a commercial element)[7] and is first revoked only by the English Habeas Corpus Act 1679 which declares that any criminal must be judged by a tribunal before being punished.