Corruption of blood
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 2 anchored passages
corruption of blood · attainder
in the texts
The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660
A common-law doctrine of hereditary legal disability following attainder, expressly excluded from the consequences of the counterfeiting Act.
Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that this Act touching the monies and coins aforesaid, or anything therein contained, nor any attainder of any person for the same, shall in any wise extend or be judged to make any corruption of blood, to any the heir or heirs of any such offender, or to make the wife of any such offender to lose or forfeit her dower, of or in any lan …
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
The legal fiction by which a felon's blood was deemed 'corrupted', barring his heirs from inheritance, traced from medieval origins to its abolition.
33 and 34 Victoria, c.
20, made standing mute equivalent to a plea of guilty.
This fiction of corrupt blood was apparently based in part on a false derivation of the word “attainder.