Non compos mentis and
felo de se (the Latin word for "self-murder") presented two different verdicts in the case of a
suicide. In the finding of a
jury, the deceased who was
stigmatized felo de se would be excluded from burial in consecrated ground and would forfeit their estate to the Crown, while these penalties would not apply to the deceased affirmed
non compos mentis. Suicide was a severe crime in
Tudor and early
Stuart England and was considered a form of
murder; a
sin not only in the eyes of the Church but also defined by criminal law. The state of mind of self-killers at the time they committed their fatal deed was crucial. To be judged guilty of "self-murder", one had to be sane. Men and women who killed themselves when they were mad or otherwise mentally incompetent were considered innocent. The verdict would be made by a jury. The penalty for suicide in England originated in the ancient world and evolved gradually into their early modern form; similar laws and customs existed in many parts of Europe. Born of domestic beliefs, the ritual of punishing suicide, which is usually concerned with the suicidal corpse, embodies the notion that suicide is polluting, and that the suicide should be ostracized by the community of the living and the dead. The theological and legal severity increased in the
High Middle Ages. The medieval theologian
Thomas Aquinas extended
Augustine's arguments against suicide and added the new interpretation of "violation of
natural law" to it. Most western European governments began to promulgate laws to confiscate some of a suicide's property. However, attitudes to suicide changed profoundly after 1660, following the
English Revolution. After the civil war, political and social changes, judicial and ecclesiastical severity gave way to official leniency for most people who died by suicide.
Non compos mentis verdicts increased greatly, and
felo de se verdicts became as rare as
non compos mentis had been two centuries earlier. However, the
laws against suicide and the verdicts
felo de se and
non compos mentis did not fade until the late nineteenth century. ==References==