Legal Definitions - malandrinus

Malandrinus

Malandrinus is a historical legal term that refers to an individual who engages in theft or piracy. It describes someone who operates outside the established law, often as a brigand, highwayman, or pirate, preying on others' property through force or stealth.

Examples of how this term might apply include:

• Imagine a scenario in 15th-century England where a band of armed men regularly ambushed merchant caravans traveling through isolated forest roads, forcibly taking their goods and valuables.

  These individuals would be considered malandrini because they are acting as brigands, committing acts of theft against travelers in a lawless and organized manner.

• Consider a group of renegade sailors in the 17th-century Mediterranean who would attack and board trading ships, seizing their cargo and sometimes even the ships themselves, operating without any national authority or legal sanction.

  These sailors fit the description of malandrini as they are engaging in piracy, which is a form of theft committed on the high seas.

• During a period of political instability in a medieval kingdom, a disgraced nobleman, having lost his estate, might gather a small private army and begin to raid the farms and villages of neighboring lords, seizing crops, livestock, and other possessions.

  This nobleman and his followers could be described as malandrini because they are acting as thieves and brigands, unlawfully appropriating property from others in a historical context of lawlessness.