Vogelfrei

Vogelfrei (Dutch: Vogelvrij and Afrikaans: Voëlvry) in German usage denotes the status of a person on whom a legal penalty of outlawry has been imposed.

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.

[citation needed] It then came to predominate through the influence of Baroque poetry and of Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik (German Grammar; 1819).

[citation needed] 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[when?].

Malicious people would be "preis gegeben und vogelfrey" [lit: given away and free as the birds], noted thus as a pair of terms in Constitutio criminalis Theresiana [Maria Theresa's Criminal Law], from 31 December 1768.