The opprobrium attached to illegitimacy (from Latin illegitimus, “unlawful”) in the early modern period (when it was used more often as an adjective, as in “illegitimate child,” “illegitimate birth”) finds expression in synonyms like bastard and euphemisms like love child). The German adjective unehelich (“out of wedlock”) is still usually treated as synonymous with illegitim (English illegitimate, French illégitime). The terms bastard and bastardy were also common in the…