Legal Definitions - ardour

Ardour is a historical legal term that referred to an individual who intentionally set fire to property. In modern legal language, such a person is known as an arsonist.

Here are some examples illustrating the historical use of this term:

• Imagine a legal proceeding in a 16th-century English manor court. If a villager was accused of deliberately burning down a neighbor's hayrick out of spite, the court records might have described the accused as an ardour.

  This illustrates the term's meaning because the individual was alleged to be a perpetrator of arson, the act of setting fire to property maliciously.

• Consider a royal proclamation issued in the 17th century, outlining new, harsher penalties for those who destroyed public buildings or ships through fire. The decree might have specifically warned against the actions of ardours and detailed the severe punishments awaiting them.

  Here, ardour is used in a formal legal context to identify individuals who commit the crime of setting fires, emphasizing the legal consequences associated with such destructive acts.

• In a historical account of a major urban fire in the 18th century, if investigators determined the blaze was not accidental but deliberately set, their reports might have referred to the search for the responsible ardour.

  This example demonstrates the term's application in identifying the individual responsible for intentionally starting a fire, highlighting the investigative and punitive aspects of the legal system at the time.