Lèse-majesté or lese-majesty (UK: /ˌliːz ˈmædʒɪsti/ leez MAJ-ist-ee, US: /ˌleɪz -/ layz -) is an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state (traditionally a monarch but now more often a president) or of the state itself. The English name for this crime is a borrowing from medieval Anglo-Norman French, where lese majesté, leze majesté or lese magestate (among other variants) meant 'an offence against the person or dignity of the Crown', which traces back to Classical Latin laesa māiestās ('hurt or violated majesty'), which was a form of treason against the emperor under the law of maiestas in Ancient Rome. The modern spellings are due to the later influence of modern French (in the case of lèse-majesté), and the gradual transformation of Anglo-Norman into a highly Anglicised form known as Law French (in the case of lese-majesty), which also accounts for the Anglicised pronunciation.
The concept of lèse-majesté expressed the idea of a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman Republic. In the Dominate, or late Empire period (from the 3rd century CE), the emperors continued to distance themselves from the republican ideals of the Roman Republic, and increasingly equated themselves with the state. Although legally the princeps civitatis (the emperor's official title, meaning, roughly, 'first citizen') could never become a sovereign because the republic was never officially abolished, emperors were deified as divus, first posthumously but later (by the Dominate period) while still reigning. Deified emperors enjoyed the same legal protection that was accorded to the divinities of the state cult; by the time Christianity replaced paganism in the Roman Empire, what was in all but name a monarchical tradition had already become well established.
