BAN, a word taken from the root of a verb common to many Teutonic languages and meaning originally "to proclaim" or "to announce." The Late Latin form of the word is bannum.
In the laws of the Franks and kindred tribes the word had three main uses : first in the general sense of a proclamation; secondly, for the fine incurred for disobeying such proclamation, and thirdly for the district over which proclamations were issued. It was the frequent use of proclamations or bans, commanding or forbidding certain actions under a threat of punishment, which caused the second of these uses to arise out of the first, as the idea of wrong-doing became associated with the proclamation or ban. This bannum dominicum, as it was called, was employed by all feudal lords, from the king downwards, against offenders, and played an important part in the administration of justice. It usually took the form of an order to make some amend for wrong-doing, which, if not complied with, was followed by out lawry.
After the break-up of the Carolingian empire another use of the word arose in France. "Ban" had occasionally been used for the summons calling out the host ; thus it came in France to be used of the vassals summoned to the host by the king, while the sub vassals summoned by the vassals were known as the arriere-ban (retro-bannum). The ban and arriere-ban were last summoned in 1758. In the mediaeval empire the word ban (Ger. Ac/it) retained the special sense of punishment.
The execution of the ban of the empire (Reichsacht) was usually entrusted by the emperor or German king to some prince or noble, who was often rewarded with a portion of the outlaw's lands. At first this sentence was the act of the emperor or king himself, but in later times it was entrusted to the imperial aulic council (Reichsho f rat), and to the imperial court of justice or imperial chamber (Reicliskammergericht). These courts were deprived of this power in 1711, retaining only the right of sug gesting its use. The imperial ban had, however, been used for the last time in 1706, when Maximilian Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, was placed under it.
In France this punitive sense of the word "ban" survived in its application to the penalty of exile whether from the country or to a particular district in it ; it survives in the legal designation rupture de ban for the escape of a criminal from the place assigned to him as a residence. From this use of the term comes the word "banish" (Fr. bannir, Ger. bannen). The word "ban" is also used in English as a synonym for excommunication (Ger. Bann). It has thus come to have a sense of combined exclusion and moral reprobation, as when we talk of this or that being under the ban of public opinion. In English the word survives in its original sense of a proclamation only in the "banns of marriage" (q.v.).