Medieval Justice Quotes
William the Conqueror. This is one of the first if not the first nationwide abolition of capital punishment in history. Ironically, the two alternatives that the abolition law allowed would both be illegal and repugnant to us today even though we allow capital punishment.
The colonial American were quite knowledgeable about trials like this one which were occuring all over Europe. The result was the demand for the First Amendment in order to ratify the original Constitution. In this particular case, the major crime that triggered the investigation and trial was the fact that La Barre did not remove his hat in respect as a religiohs procession of Corpus Christi went by. During the investigation, the mayor searched La Barre’s residence and found blasphemous literature the worst of which appeared to be Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary which the Mayor ordered to be burned along with the head and body. The photo is a plaque in Abbeville to the victim reminding all of the danger of mixing religion in civil law.
William the Conqueror. In Wager of Battle—often called “trial by combat”, a guilty person could challenge his accuser to combat. If the accuser won, the person must have been guilty; if the accused person won, he must have been falsely accused. It was assumed that this method gave God a clear opportunity to do justice. As silly as this appears to us today, at the time, most people believed that God was indeed looking at every event and would intercede to be sure that justice would prevail. In reality, it allowed the stronger men with good weapons skills to literally get away with murder or anything else. A similar logic operated with the Ordeal of Iron and other so called “ordeals”. In the ordeal by iron, the accused was required to lift a red hot iron rod. He would of course be burned. If the burn healed, God was showing that he was innocent. But if the burn festered and got infected, God was showing that he was guilty. If he didn’t die of gangrene or other infection, he could then be executed or otherwise punished. In England the Ordeal by Iron commanded by King William was abolished in 1215. Some scholars argued that there was a method to the madness of trial by ordeal. If most people were so religious or superstitious that they believed that God would be sure that the right outcome would prevail. A false accuser would recant rather than expose himself to almost certain death in combat with an innocent person who God would surely protect. Of course the pious people would be at a great disadvantage to the non-believers who would not be intimidated. Trial by combat lasted much longer and evolved into dueling which was quite prevalent in America until later in the 19th century.
Appeals to Providence included Trial by Fire, Trial by Water and related Trial by Ordeal. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal for explanations of these.
Schmidt was the Executioner at Nuremberg. Some regard it strange that a n executioner should be concerned witth the suffering of the condemned, but he saw himself as a professional whose job it was to dispatch the guilty, but he saw no reason why that should suffer any more than was necesary.
