Crime and Punishment

Medieval Courts
1. Royal Court
2. Church Courts
3. Manicour Court
What Medieval authorities relied on?
1. Catching a person as they committed the crime.
2. Local people decided if a neighbour was the kind of person likely to have committed the crime based on past behaviour.
  1. This is not the best way to decided if someone is guilty because their past behaviour will always be a major fact especially if you are trying to change.
Tithing
1. All freedom(except for the clergy and knights) were made to join a tithing of ten men, who were responsible for the behaviour of each other. If one of them was accused of a crime the other members of the of the tithing had a job of bringing that person to justice or paying a fine to the victim of the crime
2. If a crime was committed they had to hunt for the criminal. This hunt was called the 'HUE AND CRY'
Medieval detectives
1. Medieval crime detection was almost impossible without modern science and usually only worked if a crime was caught in the act, or was accused by someone who had witnessed the crime
Medieval Evidence
1. Witness of neighbours
  1. The accused person found enough people who would be willing to swear on oath concerning their past good behaviour
2. Trial by jury
  1. This was the usual method by 1450. A group of local people looked at any evidence, listened to witnesses, discussed the character of the person
3. Strengths and weaknesses
  1. Stregths
    1. Likely to be the person who committed the crime.
    2. Based on personality
  2. Weaknesses
    1. With the weakness of neighbours, people could lie
    2. Unreliable evidence
    3. They could be judged on old behaviour.
    4. Witnesses could put personal or emotional input against them
    5. Prejudice people
    6. Not focusing on crime but past behaviour
By 1400 local land owners were appointed as justice of the peace
1. After..
  1. Begging increased
    1. This was due to the problems with the country's economy
    2. England had high unemployment, people begging and looking for work
      1. This led to increased crime rate
Summary...
1. Medieval crime rates were affected by a range of causes.
2. Medieval crime prevention relied on local communities.
3. Without police forces and scientific methods, medieval crime detection was very difficult
Medieval ideas about crime
1. Many medieval crimes were punishable by the death penalty of hanging(capital punishment)
Categonising
1. Medieval society had a defined class system
2. Those with the most money and property wanted to protect themselves from those who had less.
Going on trial
1. Folk Moot-Medieval open air court
  1. Oath helpers-The victim then told their version of events to a jury made up of local men who knew the victim and accused
    1. Value of an oath - helper
      1. The judge decided whether or not they were guilty, the more richer you are the more they believed that you were innocent
  2. Trials, called folk mook
2. Trial by cold water
  1. The accused person was tied up and thrown into a deep pond. People in the water would have been regarded as 'holy' water because a priest would have blessed it.
  2. If the suspect floated, the holy water didn't want him. Nor did god, so he must have been a bad person. He must have been guilty and would need to be punished.
  3. If the suspect sank and drowned, god must have wanted him in heaven. He must have been a good man therefore innocent.
  4. Either way the suspect would have died.
3. Trial by hot iron
  1. The accused was made to walk three paces with a red hot iron on his hand. His hand was then bandaged and sealed by a priest
  2. Three days later, it was uncovered. If the wound had begun to heal, the person was declared innocent because god must have thought the prisoner was innocent but if the wound was infected then they believed that god must have thought he was not worthy of helping.
4. Trial by hot water
  1. The prisoner had to plunge their hand into a pot of boiling water to pick up a stone or ring from the bottom.
5. Trial by bread
  1. This was usually taken by priests accused of a crime.
  2. They had to pray to god not to choke them if they ate bread. Then they ate some bread that had been blessed by another priest. If they chocked, they were guilty because god would not let a dishonest priest eat holy bread.
6. The Ordeal
  1. All ordeals, except trial by cold water, took place inside a church.
  2. All the prisoners had to attended a church service on the day of their trial and weren't allowed to eat for three days before hand.

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	Created by j.samdhu about 11 years ago