Legal Definitions - forbatudus

A forbatudus is a historical legal term referring to an individual who initiates or provokes a physical altercation and subsequently dies as a direct result of that same fight. Essentially, it describes someone who starts a fight and is killed in the course of it.

• Imagine a scenario in a tavern where a patron, intoxicated and aggressive, shoves another individual and throws the first punch. The other individual, acting in self-defense, retaliates, and during the ensuing struggle, the aggressor falls, hits their head, and dies from the injury. In historical legal contexts, the aggressor would be considered a forbatudus because they provoked the fight and died within it.

• Consider a historical duel where one party, feeling dishonored, publicly challenges another to a fight to the death. The challenged party accepts, and during the sword fight that follows, the challenger is fatally wounded. Here, the challenger acted as the forbatudus, as they initiated the deadly encounter and perished in it.

• In a street altercation, a person named David confronts another individual, Sarah, with threats and then physically attacks her. Sarah defends herself, and in the struggle, David suffers a fatal injury. David would be identified as the forbatudus because he was the aggressor who started the physical conflict and died during its course.