The expression "wolf's head" was an old Saxon formula of outlawry, and
appears to have originated from the circumstance that a price was set on
the fugitive equivalent to that at which a wolf's head was estimated.
One of the laws of Edward the Confessor deals with the case of a person
who has fled justice, and pronounces: "Si postea repertus fuerit et
teneri possit, vivus regi reddatur, vel caput ipsius si se defenderit;
lupinum enim caput geret a die utlagacionis sue, quod ab Anglis
_wlvesheved_ nominatur. Et hec sententia communis est de omnibus
utlagis."

Already we are in possession of the salient facts as regards outlawry.
As a rule the outlaw was not banished, as citizens were ostracized at
Athens, to secure the State from dangerous rivalries. In other words,
they were commonly not men of character and distinction, but just the
reverse--persons whose conduct was so destitute of honour as to degrade
them, in the eyes of the community, to the level of the worst sort of
vermin. And they were treated accordingly. They were held to be unfit to
exist as an integral part of the body politic, and either destroyed or,
as an alternative, constrained to abjure the realm. The head and front
of their offence was not any act of which they might have been guilty.
The direct, and, it may be said, the sole, cause of their proscription
was refusal to submit to the laws, to accept justice at the hands of
their country-men.

This comes out quite distinctly in the legislative enactments of our
remote ancestors. Kemble in his "Saxons in England" quotes the following
law of King Edgar:

"That a thief be pursued, if necessary. If there be present need, let it
be told the hundred men, and let them afterwards make it known to the
tithing men and let them all go forth whither God may direct them to
their end; let them all do justice on the thief as it was formerly
Eadmund's law. And be the _ceapgild_ (i.e., market value) paid to him
that owns the chattel; and be the rest divided in two, half to the
hundred, half to the lord except men; and let the lord take possession
of the men.

"And if any neglect this and deny the judgment of the hundred, and the
same be afterwards proved against him, let him pay to the hundred 30
pence; and the second time 60 pence; half to the hundred, half to the
lord. If he do it a third time, let him pay 1/2 lb; the 4th time let him
lose all that he hath and be an outlaw, unless the King will allow him
to r