Criminal Procedure in the Church Courts of the Fifteenth Century As Illustrated by the Trial of Gilles de Rais

1917 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 23-45
Author(s):  
Arthur Charles Howland
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Civil Case ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Private Person ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Church

The inquisitorial procedure in the investigation of crimes, which developed in the Church in the thirteenth century, grew out of the criminal procedure of the later Roman Empire, modified by the special conditions of the times as well as by more primitive Germanic ideas. The older ecclesiastical procedure, the accusatory, likewise based on the Roman law, had left the entire initiative in prosecution to the private accuser, who presented himself in the character of a plaintiff, formulated the accusation, and produced the proofs exactly as he would have done in a civil case, except that he was compelled to accept the lex talionis—that is, in case he was unable to support his charges with a reasonable show of evidence, the accuser agreed to submit to the same punishment as would have been inflicted on the accused if the charges had been proved. The obvious objections to this procedure were that the church authorities had no means of prosecuting crime on their own initiative and that the dangers surrounding an unsuccessful accuser, together with the various conditions that had to be fulfilled before a private person could qualify as an accuser in any case, made adequate private prosecution impossible. The accusatory system, it is true, had been modified by the introduction of denunciation, where a denouncer takes the place of the accuser, with this difference, that he is not compelled to subscribe to the talio nor is he compelled to possess all the qualifications of a legal accuser. This tended to encourage private prosecution of crimes, but the advantage was more than balanced by the privilege enjoyed by the accused of clearing himself of the charges by purgation, either the oath or the ordeal.

scholarly journals Jan Chryzostom objaśnia "Hymn o miłości" [1Kor 13] (In I Epistolam ad Corinthios hom. 33-34)

Vox Patrum ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-315
Author(s):  
Jan Iluk
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The Road ◽  
Shortest Route ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Christian Love ◽  
The Times ◽  
Autumn And Winter ◽  
The Church

In 1CorHom, edited in the autumn and winter of 392 and 393 AD, John Chrysostom found a natural opportunity to return to his numerous utterances on the role of love in the lives of people. Obviously, the opportunity was the 13“ chapter of this Letter - The Song of Love. Among his works, we will find a few more smali works which were created with the intention of outlining the Christian ideał of love. Many of the contemporary monographs which were devoted to the ancient understanding of Christian „love” have the phrase „Eros and Agape” in their titles. In contemporary languages, this arrangement extends between sex and love. Both in the times of the Church Fathers (the 4th century AD) and currently, the distance between sex and love is measured by feelings, States and actions which are morę or less refined and noble. The awareness of the existence of many stops over this distance leads to the conviction that our lives are a search for the road to Agape. As many people are looking not so much for a shortcut but for a shorter route, John Chrysostom, like other Church Fathers, declared: the shortest route, because it is the most appropriate for this aim, is to live according to the Christian virtues that have been accumulated by the Christian politeia. There are to be found the fewest torments and disenchantments, although there are sacrifices. Evangelical politeia, the chosen and those who have been brought there will find love) - as a State of existence. In the earthly dimension, however, love appears as a causative force only in the circle of the Christian politeia. Obviously, just as in the heavenly politeia, the Christian politeia on earth is an open circle for everyone. As Chrysostom’s listeners and readers were not only Christians (in the multi-cultural East of the Roman Empire), and as the background of the principles presented in the homilies was the everyday life and customs of the Romans of the time, the ideał - dyam] - was placed by him in the context of diverse imperfections in the rangę and form of the feelings exhibited, which up to this day we still also cali love. It is true that love has morę than one name. By introducing the motif of love - into deliberations on the subject of the Christian politeia, John Chrysostom finds and indicates to the faithful the central force that shaped the ancient Church. This motif fills in the vision of the Heavenly Kingdom, explains to Christians the sense of life that is appropriate to them in the Roman community and explains the principles of organised life within the boundaries of the Church. It can come as no surprise that the result of such a narrative was Chrysostonfs conviction that love is „rationed”: Jews, pagans, Hellenes and heretics were deprived of it. In Chrysostonfs imagination, the Christian politeia has an earthly and a heavenly dimension. In the heavenly politeia, also called by him Chrisfs, the Lord’s or the

The Slaves of the Churches

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E. Sommar
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Church History ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specialist Knowledge ◽  
Church Law ◽  
The Church

This is the story of how the church sought to establish norms for slave ownership on the part of ecclesiastical institutions and personnel and for others’ behavior toward such slaves. The story begins in the New Testament era, when the earliest Christian norms were established, and continues through the late Roman Empire, the Germanic kingdoms, and the Carolingian Empire, to the thirteenth-century establishment of a body of ecclesiastical regulations (canon law) that would persist into the twentieth century. Chronicles, letters, and other documents from each of the various historical periods, along with an analysis of the various policies and statutes, provide insight into the situations of these unfree ecclesiastical dependents. The book stops in the thirteenth century, which was a time of great changes, not only in the history of the legal profession, but also in the history of slavery as Europeans began to reach out into the Atlantic. Although this book is a serious scholarly monograph about the history of church law, it has been written in such a way that no specialist knowledge is required of the reader, whether a scholar in another field or a general reader interested in church history or the history of slavery. Historical background is provided, and there is a short Latin lexicon.

Testamentary cases in fifteenth-century Chancery

2008 ◽  
Vol 76 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 283-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Biancalana
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe church courts in England traditionally had jurisdiction over testaments and the litigation arising from testaments. In the fifteenth century, however, Chancery also took jurisdiction over testamentary cases. This article surveys the testamentary litigation in fifteenth-century English Chancery.

Between Reform and Reformation: The English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

1990 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 647-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Heath
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Current Version ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Late Medieval England ◽  
The Church

Forty years ago the story of the Church in late medieval England was a simple one and not very different from the version which had prevailed half a century before that. The interpretation presented by W. Capes in 1900 had been slightly modified but largely underlined by 1950, and the Church and its development which was commonly depicted in that year would not have been strikingly unfamiliar to him. The current version was that, after the reforming efforts of the thirteenth century, which failed to achieve their end, and the advent of the friars, who even by the middle of that century were departing from their earlier zeal and purity, the Church in the following hundred years was exploited by the pope when it was not saved or oppressed by the Crown. The resulting corruption of the clergy contributed to its negligence and provoked an eruption of heresy which in due course was savagely suppressed and virtually expunged; rid of this threat, the fifteenth-century clergy were so notorious for their laxity, greed and mediocrity that a few devout members of the laity, perhaps inspired by the mystical writings, took refuge in private devotions which anticipated the individualism of the Protestant. The Reformation was viewed as the inescapable result of these circumstances.

The Mediæval Legend of Judas Iscariot

PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-632
Author(s):  
Paull Franklin Baum
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Early Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Judas Iscariot ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

The legendary Life of Judas the Betrayer, based, it is usually said, on the Greek myth of Œdipus, is found in almost every language and country of mediæval Europe. It was written down in Latin as early as the twelfth century. By the end of the thirteenth century it was turned into the vernacular in lands as far apart as Wales, Catalonia, and Bohemia. At the close of the Middle Ages it had become the possession of the folk, and since that period—to some extent even during the fifteenth century—it has spread northward and eastward into Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, and Bulgaria. It was related in Greek, probably in the Middle Ages, although the manuscripts are of a much later date. It was still told orally in Galicia at the end of the last century. As a regular part of the ecclesiastical literature of the West it received canonization, so to say, late in the thirteenth century, in the great legendary of Jacopo da Voragine; but, on the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that in the Middle Ages, so far as I have been able to learn, none of the reputable church writers (with the exception of Jacopo) recognized or even mentioned it. And furthermore, mediaeval sculptors and carvers of wood and ivory, who gave themselves with so much zeal to the plastic representation of legendary matter, completely eschewed or overlooked the ‘early life’ of Judas. Not indeed that either the church writers or artists sought to avoid contact with such a wicked character; on the contrary, they devoted considerable space to him, rejecting only his apocryphal career. However this omission may be explained, the fact must be recognized as of some interest.

From Synod to Consistory: the Bishops’ Courts in England, 1150–1250

1971 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
Colin Morris
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Progress Report ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Primary Interest ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
Royal Power ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Mode Of Operation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

It would be absurd to complain that the church courts have been neglected by historians of twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. Their conflicts with the royal power over the extent of their jurisdiction lay at the heart of the Becket drama, and help to explain the uneasy relations between church and crown which subsisted throughout a considerable part of the thirteenth century. Although this aspect of the topic is prominent in general histories of the period, however, surprisingly little work has been done on the bishops’ courts themselves; on their mode of operation and the way in which they were organised. On investigation, it must be admitted that one can understand the neglect of historians. The questions of disputed jurisdiction, which are of primary interest for political history, have been thoroughly discussed in a number of able studies. Moreover, the amount of surviving evidence from the bishops’ courts before 1250 is very restricted. Influential litigants preferred to have their cases heard by the pope, either in the Roman curia itself or (more commonly) before papal judges delegate in England; and the uninfluential leave no records. This does not mean that the bishops and archdeacons had lost virtually all their jurisdiction to Rome, but it does mean that the reconstruction of the way in which they operated is a detective problem of considerable delicacy. A complete picture would be very difficult to achieve, but a progress report, however imperfect (for this is all that this article can claim to be) reveals some features of considerable interest.

Condemnation to the Mines in the Later Roman Empire

1994 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Gustafson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Times ◽  
Mild Punishment ◽  
Religious Reasons ◽  
The Church

Lactantius, in his shrill polemical pamphlet De mortibus persecutorum, made the following observation while attacking his principal adversary, the emperor Galerius: “There was no mild punishment with him, not islands, not mines, not prisons; but fire, the cross, and wild beasts were daily and ready at hand.” More than a sign of the times, it is also a measure of his fury that Galerius could make exile, hard labor, and imprisonment seem to be lenient sentences. While one must resist succumbing immediately to credulity, one also must admit that even such hyperbole may have a kernel of truth in it. Lactantius probably assumed—as did many others—that the myriad adjustments to the complex relations between the church and the empire, which were in the process of being engineered by Constantine and his associates, would eliminate the need to inflict such punishments on Christians for religious reasons.

scholarly journals Ku chrześcijańskim korzeniom Europy. Znaczenie nawrócenia cesarza Konstantyna dla Kościoła, dla Cesarstwa Rzymskiego, dla Europy

Vox Patrum ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 9-38
Author(s):  
Józef Grzywaczewski
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Church ◽  
General Opinion

The article is consecrated to Constantine’s conversion and to its consequences for the Church, for the Roman Empire and for Europe. There is a general opinion that, even if his attachment to Christianity was not very mature, he worked for the Christian religion during all his life. He has taken many decisions on behalf of the Church; he protected her against the Donatists in Africa. His position towards the Arian heresy was not very clear. He did not pay attention to the dogmatic for­mulas, but especially to those solutions which guaranteed peace among people. Surely, the emperor once introduced into the Church, remained there as her pro­tector and head. The society was accustomed the emperor’s position as pontifex maximus. Bishops did not protested against his involving into ecclesiastic matters because he worked on their behalf. The effect of Constantine’s attitude was: the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the connection of the Church to the State. In later centuries such an alliance of the altar with the throne was boring for the Church. It is said that every privilege has to be paid. The Roman Empire was collapsed in the end of the fifth century, but its heritage remained in Europe. Charlemagne, cooperating with Pope Leon III, tried to restore the Roman Empire as a Christian State, but he failed to do it. Surely, by his support for schools and studies, he contributed to the European culture. The idea of the Sacrum Imperium Romanum appeared again in the times of Otto I, and especially of Otto III. Such an idea was not possible to be put into practice. The Roman Empire has never been restored, but many of its elements were assimilated by the Church and by medieval Europe. There are to be noticed in all European countries in our time.

The Episcopal Church, the Roman Empire and the Royal Supremacy in Restoration Scotland

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 176-189
Author(s):  
Andrew Carter
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Royal Supremacy ◽  
The Church ◽  
Do So ◽  
Three Phases

The churchmen who adhered to the established Church in Scotland during the years from 1661 to 1689, the last period in which it had bishops, have been overlooked by historians in favour of laymen and presbyterian dissenters. This article breaks new ground by examining the episcopalian clergy's attitude to the royal supremacy. To do so, it explores how Scottish episcopalians used the early Church under the Roman empire to illustrate their ideal relationship between Church and monarch. Three phases are evident in their approach. First, it was argued that conformists were, like early Christians, living in proper obedience, while presbyterians were seeking to create a separate jurisdiction in conflict with the king's. Later, Bishop Andrew Honeyman of Orkney tried to put some limitations on the royal supremacy over the Church, arguing that church courts had an independent power of discipline. This became politically unacceptable after the 1669 Act of Supremacy gave the king complete power over the Church, and, in the final phase, the history of the early Church was used to undermine the power of the church courts. The Church under the Roman empire, much like the royal supremacy itself, changed from an instrument to encourage conformity to a means of delegitimizing any clerical opposition to royal policy.

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