Contents

Hue and cry

This article is about a common law term. For other uses, see Hue and Cry.

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Incommon law, a hue and cry is a process by which bystanders are summoned to assist in the apprehension of a criminal who has been witnessed in the act of committing a crime.

Hue and Cry Act 1734
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long title	An Act for the Amendment of the Law relating to Actions on the Statute of Hue and Cry.
Citation	8 Geo. 2. c. 16
Dates
Royal assent	15 May 1735
Other legislation
Repealed by	Criminal Statutes Repeal Act 1827
Status: Repealed

Hue and Cry Act 1748
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long title	An Act for remedying Inconveniencies which may happen by Proceedings in Actions on the Statutes of Hue and Cry.
Citation	22 Geo. 2. c. 24
Dates
Royal assent	26 May 1749
Other legislation
Repealed by	Criminal Statutes Repeal Act 1827
Status: Repealed

By the Statute of Winchester of 1285, 13 Edw. 1. St. 2. c. 4, it was provided that anyone, either a constable or a private citizen, who witnessed a crime shall make hue and cry, and that the hue and cry must be kept up against the fleeing criminal from town to town and from county to county, until the felon is apprehended and delivered to the sheriff. All able-bodied men, upon hearing the shouts, were obliged to assist in the pursuit of the criminal, which makes it comparable to the posse comitatus. It was moreover provided that "the whole hundred … shall be answerable" for the theftorrobbery committed, in effect a form of collective punishment. Those who raised a hue and cry falsely were themselves guilty of a crime.^[1]

The oath of office for constablesinTennessee, USA specifically mentions that it is the duty of the constable to sound the hue and cry.^{[note 1]}

It is possible that the term is an Anglicization via Anglo-French of the Latin hutesium et clamor, meaning "a horn and shouting".^[2] Other sources indicate that it has always been a somewhat redundant phrase meaning an outcry and cry, though such "redundancy" is a feature of the legal doublet. "Hue" appears to come from the Old French huer, which means "to shout", and "cry" from Old French crier ("to cry").^[3][4][5][6]

• From the late 18th century until 1839, Hue and Cry was a principal or variant title for the weekly newspaper, containing details of crimes and wanted people, that afterwards became better known as the Police Gazette.
• Hue and Cry: a newspaper advertisement that offered rewards for the recapture of enslaved people who had escaped their owners.^{[citation needed]}

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Hue and Cry".

• AMBER Alert
• Citizen's arrest
• Clameur de haro
• History of law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Nightwalker statute
• Misprision#Negative misprision
• Posse comitatus

• Duggan, Kenneth F. (2017). "The Hue and Cry in Thirteenth-Century England". Thirteenth Century England. 16: 153–72. doi:10.1017/9781787441439.010. ISBN 9781787441439.
• Duggan, Kenneth F. (2020). "The limits of strong government: attempts to control criminality in thirteenth-century England". Historical Research. 93 (261): 399–419.
• Sagui, Samantha (2014). "The hue and cry in medieval English towns". Historical Research. 87 (236): 179–93. doi:10.1111/1468-2281.12030.