Outer Appearance, Late Medieval Public Space, and the Law *

Outer Appearance,
Late Medieval Public Space, and the Law
*
Gerhard Jaritz
Late medieval discourse about material culture and behaviour was
sometimes extraordinarily rich. This was patticularly true for phenomena in the
public sphere and concerning outer appearance: dress, housing, festivities, food
and meals taken outside one’s house, etc. In chronicles, laws, charters, travel
descriptions, religious and secular literature, and sermons, the discussion often
became detailed and heated. The sources deal particularly with the exceptional
and special, to be positively evaluated, or, more often, to be criticised, made fun
of, condemned or prohibited. Sumptuary laws played an important role in this
latter respect.1 For the German-speaking areas of Europe, the urban sumptuary
laws especially have to be mentioned as the most relevant sources for this topic
in the period from the fourteenth to the beginning ofthe sixteenth century.2
This comribution is a modified version ofthe author’s study „lra Dei, Material Culture, and
Behavior in the Late Middle Ages: Evidence from German-speaking Regions,“ Essays in
Medieval Studies 1 8 (2002): 53-66.
1 Conceming sumptuary legislation, generally, sec, e. g., Alan Hunt, Governance ofthe Consuming
Passions: a Histoty ofSumptuary Law (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1 996); Disciplinare
il lusso. La legislazione suntuaria in ltalia e in Europa tra Medioeva ed Eta moderna,
ed. Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli and Antonella Campanini (Rome: Carocci, 2003);
Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, „Reconciling the Privilege of a Few with the Common
Good: Sumptuary Laws in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,“ Journal of Medieval and
Early Modern Studies 39 (2009): 597-617; for England: Frances Elizabeth Baldwin,
Sumptumy Legislation and Personal Regulation in England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1926); Thomas Lilttenberg, „Sempre w1 passo indietro rispetto alla moda: leggi sun-
11Jarie in Inghilterra da I Medioevo all’inizio del XVII secolo,“ in Disciplinare il lusso, 145-
62; for late medieval Ttaly and France: Catherine Kovesi Killerby, Sumptuary Law in /taly
1200-1500 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002); Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli (cd.), La legislazione
suntuaria secoli XIll-XVI: Emilia Romagna, Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato,
Fonti XLI (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attivita culturali, 2002); Disciplinare il lusso,
17-1 05; Johanna B. Moyer, „Sumptuary law in Ancien Regime France, 1229-1 806,“ D i ss.,
Syracuse University, 1996; eithard Bulst, „La legislazione suntuaria in Francia (secoli
Xlll-XVITI),“ in Disciplinare i/ lusso, 12 1-36 Forthe German speaking areas see note 2.
2 See, e.g., Kent Robens Greenfield, Sumptuary Law in Nürnberg: A Study in Paternal Government
(Baltimore: Johns Hopk.ins Press, 1 9 1 8); Genraud Hampel, Beitrag zur Geschichte
der Kleiderordnungen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Österreichs (Vienna: Verlag des
wissenschaftlichen Antiquariats H. Geyer, 1 962); Liselotte-Constanze Eisenbart, Kleider-
50
Beside the social arguments of status, the discourse about the God-given
differences among humans revealed in their outer appearance was also driven by
religious, economic, moral, and national criteria. From the religious point of
view in the arguments given by representatives of the Church, it was particularly
superbia, pride and haughtiness, that was seen as most relevant; one of the main
sins and the first sin of mankind, it had provoked the wrath of God. Saint
Bridget of Sweden, for instance, states in her Reve/aciones about Adam:3 Jra
Dei super eum venit pro superbia, qua in sua felicitate Deum offenderat (The
wrath of the Lord came over him, who had offended God in his high spirits).
Superbia was closely connected with the material aspects of this world.
One may just think of the regularly used waming examples of „Good and Bad
Thoughts“ or the „Good and Bad Prayer,“ which are also found as didactic and
moralising images with visual contrasts, mainly in the fifteenth century.4 In a
Southem German woodcut (fig. 1), the good and pious man is concentrating his
thoughts and prayers on the Passion of Christ, while the haughty man reflects on
Ordnungen der deutschen Städte zwischen 1350 und 1 700, Göttinger Bausteine zur
Geschichtswissenschaft 32 (Göttingen, Berlin, and Frankfurt/Main: Mustersclunidt-Verlag,
1962); Veronika Bauer, Kleiderordnungen in Bayern vom 14. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert,
Miscellanea Bavarica Monacensia 62 (Munich: Kommissionsbuchhandlung R. Wölfle,
1975); Neithard Bulst, „Zum Problem städtischer und territorialer Kleider-, Aufwands- und
Luxusgesetzgebung in Deutschland ( 1 3 . bis Mitte 16. Jahrhundert),“ in Renaissance du
pouvoir legsi latif et genese de I’J!:tat, ed. Andre Gouron and Albert Rigaudiere,
Publications de Ia Societe d’histoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays de droit
ecrit Jll (Montpellier: Societe d’histoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays de droit
ecrit, 1988), 29-57; idem, „Feste und Feiern unter Auflagen. Mittelalterliche Tauf-, Hochzeits-
und Begräbnisordnungen in Deutschland und Frankreich,“ in: Feste und Feiern im
Miue/a/ter, ed. Detlef Altenburg et al. (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1991), 39-54; Jutta Zander-
Seidel, „Kieidergesetzgebung und städtische Ordnung, Inhalte, Überwachung und Akzeptanz
frühneuzeitlicher Kleiderordnungen,“ Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums
1993: 1 76-88; Gerhard Jaritz, „Kleidung und Prestige-Konkurrenz. Unterschiedliche
ldentitäten in der städtischen Gesellschaft unter Normierungszwängen,“ Saeculum 44
(1993): 8-31; idem, „Leggi sunmarie nelle aree di lingua tcdesca,“ in D i sciplinare il lusso,
ed. Muzzarelli and Campaninia, 1 37-43.
3 Book XI: Sermo Angelicus, chapter 7/4 [Sancta Birgitta, Opera Minora 11: Sermo Angelicvs
(Revelationes XI), ed. Sten Eklund (Uppsala: Almqvist and Wiksells, 1972); http:
//www.umilta.net/bkl l .html – last accessed: December 28, 2012]. See ibidem, XT/7/6:
Adam, Dyaboli inuidia deprauatus, per suam superbiam a vita perpetua deiecerat.
4 See Robert Wildhaber, „Das gute und das schlechte Gebet,“ in: Europäische Kulturverflechtungen
im Bereich der volkstümlichen Überliejm( mg. Festschriftfiir Bruno Schier zum
65. Geburtstag, ed. Gerhard Heilfurth and Hinrich Siuts, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts
fiir Mitteleuropäische Volksforschtmg A5 (Göttingen: Schwanz, 1967), 63-72; Nils-Arvid
Bringeus, Volkstümliche Bilderkunde (Münich: Callwey, 1982), 25-27; Gerhard Jaritz,
„Das schlechte Gebet zu den Schätzen der Welt,“ in Vom Umgang mit Schätzen, ed. Elisabeth
Vavra et al., Forschungen des Instituts für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der
frühen Neuzeit. Diskussionen tmd Materialien 8 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 2007), 8 1 -97.
5 1
his riches: house, horse, food and drink, dress.5 The same stereotype appears in
many other examples as, for instance, in a probably Austrian panel painting
from the l430s kept in the Christian Museum of Esztergom, Hungary (fig. 2).6
For the man who concentrated on bad prayer, depicted on another panel now
lost, only the worldly treasures counted: house, horse, vessels, clothes, treasure
chests, including his proud beautiful wife. He ignored Christ and the spiritual
aspects of life.
Fig. I: Good and Bad Thoughts, woodcut, c. 1460.
Out ofBringeus, Volkstümliche Bilder/runde, 25, fig. 14.
5 The „Good and Bad Prayer,“ woodcut, German, 1430-1460; sec Bringeus, Volkstümliche
Bilder/runde, 25, fig. 14; Jaritz, „Das schlechte Gebet,“ 87, fig. 6.
6 Evagariones Spirihls, panel painting, thirties of the fifteenth century, Austrian (?), Esztergom,
Christian Museum. See Pa! Csefalvay, ed, Christliches Museum Esztergorn (Budapest:
Corvina, 1993), 1 88-89, n. 23 and ill. 23; Jaritz, „Das schlechte Gebet,“ 92, fig. 1 3 .
52
Fig. 2: Bad Thoughts, panel painting, 1430-1440, © Institut fiir Realienkunde des Mittelalters
und der frühen Neuzeit of the University of Salzburg (Krems an der Donau, Austria).
ln the argument of the Church and its representatives, such behaviour provoked
God’s wrath and led to punishment. This tradition is already found in the
Old Testament. One may just think, in particular, of lsaiah and bis description of
the proud daughters of Zion (lsaiah 3 : 1 6 ff.):
Moreover the LORD saith, because the daughters oj Zion are haughty,
and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing
as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: therefore the LORD
will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and
the LORD will discover their secret parts. in that day the Lord will take
away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their
cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets,
and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the Ornaments of the legs, and the
headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, and nose jewels,
the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and
the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the
veils. And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there sha/1 be
stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of weil set hair baldness;
53
and instead of a stomaeher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of
beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in war.
In late medieval discourse it was not only religious space and the sphere of the
Church that concentrated on connecting pride, superfluity, and deviations in
public outer appearance with the punishing wrath of God. The Church and the
secular authorities operated close to each other. The latter also sometimes mentioned,
used or constructed God’s wrath in the context of phenomena connected
with features of the outer appearance of material life that could endanger the
social and economic system.
When dealing with evidence from the secular urban space of the Germanspeaking
areas of late medieval Europe, one sees that the reasons for and results
of such deviations, and the phenomena themselves, were occasionally dealt with
in a rather detailed manner. In laws, the secular authorities, mainly the town
councils, sometimes adapted the religious discourse in their sumptuary laws,
particularly in those trying to regulate dress as the most ostentatious medium for
showing off, representing oneself, and visualizing differences in status and in
the social order of the system. The introduction to the dress regulation of Speyer
from 1 356, for instance, used the stereotype that haughtiness was the first of all
sins ever committed, being therefore the root of all other sins. lt annoyed God
and hanned the people.7
Regularly, one finds such and similar arguments in the context of wearing
fashionable or new styles of clothes. This emphasis could occur in a general sense,
but also in a detailed way in connection with a specific piece of dress. A
rather well-known general example is that from a Nurernberg dress Jaw from the
second half o f the fifteenth century:8
As the almighty God since the beginning, not only on earth but also in
heaven and in paradise, has hated the vice of pride and wantonness, and
has punished them heavily, and as pride and disobedience have been the
reason that a number of counties and communities perished, therefore …
we give the following law to praise the Lord, to promote common prof it
and to honour the city of Nuremberg.
This law was then certainly a dress regulation. In 1479, dukes Ernst and
Albrecht of Saxonia asked the town council of Leipzig to keep the sumptuary
legislation, again mainly dress regulations, weil and rigorously so that wicked
7 Franz Joseph Mone, „Sittenpolizei zu Speier, Strassburg und Konstanz im 14. und 15.
Jahrhundert,“ Zeitschrift fiir die Geschichte des Oberrheins 7 ( 1856): 58; cf. Uhike Lebmann-
Langholz, Kleiderkritik in mittelalterlicher Dichtung. Der Arme Hartmann, Heinrich
, von Melk‘, Neidharl, Wernher der Gartenaere und ein Ausblick auf die Stellungnahmen
spätminelalterlicher Dichter, Europäische Hochschulschriften I/885 (Frankfurt/Main, Beru,
and New York: Peter Lang, 1985), 294-97.
8 Nürnberger Polizeiordnungen aus dem Xfll bis XV Jahrhundert, ed. Joseph Baader, Bibliothek
des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart LXIII (1861, repr. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi,
1 966), 95.
54
pride would not provoke God’s wrath and result in severe punishrnent and the
denial ofhis grace.9
A Strassburg dress regulation from 1493, for example, connected the reaction
of God to an individual object of clothing. Jt prohibited the very short men’s
dress that was wom by people „without fear of God.“10 In 1 464, two monstrances,
with the Eucharist and holy oil, were stolen out of the minster of Bem
in Switzerland. This event was clearly seen as connected with the existing
superbia in the outer appearance of the inhabitants. To honour and praise the
Lord, to soften his wrath and regain his mercy, dress regulations were proclaimed
to be valid for everyone living in the town, explicitly against pointed
shoes, too-short men ’s clothing, and trains on women’s clothes.1 1
In late medieval discourse, pointed shoes were seen as a particularly vain
object that could provoke God’s wrath as weil as that of the urban authorities.
The Bohemian chronicle of Benes of Weitmil notcs for 1 3 72 that for a young
noble couple who wore them God sent down a bolt of lightning that cut off the
points. 12 A nurober of critiques and Statements against them used a general
argumentation, sometimes articulating a prohibition for everyone (as in the 1464
dress regulation from Bem noted above), but generalities cannot be drawn that
such pointed shoes (and also some other items of dress) were always seen as
objects of vanity for everyone. The whole situation was a matter of status
difference that led to varieties of realisation and decisively intluenced the discussion
about prohibited versus allowed public material objects. 13 Often, for
instance, pointed shoes were seen as a fashionable sign necessary for members
of the upper classes of society to show their social status (see fig. 3).
9 Urkundenbuch der Stadt Leipzig, ed. Karl Friedrich von Posem-Klett, Codex Diplomaticus
Saxoniae 2NIII (Leipzig: Gicsecke & Devrient, 1 868), 416, n. 498 ( 14 78 I 1 4).
10 Strassburger Zunft- und Polizei-Verordnungen des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, ed. Johann
1 Kar! Brucker (Strassburg: Kar! J. Tiiibner, 1 889), 293. 1 Die Rechtsquellen des Kantons Bern, V I : Das Stadtrecht von Bern, I (1218-1539), ed.
Friedrich Emil Welti, Sammlung Schweizerischer Rechtsquellen II (Aarau: H. R. Sauerländer
& Co., 1902), 1 87-89 and 192-93; Leo Zehnder, Volkskundliches in der älteren schweizerischen
Chronistik, Schriften der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft ftir Volkskunde 60 (Basel:
Verlag G. Krebs AG, 1976), 8 1-83.
12 „Chronicon Benessii de Weitmil,“ ed. Josef Emler, in: Fonres rerum Bohemicarum IV
(Prague: Näkl. Nadäni Franriska Palackeho, 1884), 546.
13 See also Gerhard Jaritz, „Schnabelschuh und Hörnerhaube oder: Bild, Sac hkulrur und
Kontextualisierung,“ in: 8. Osten·eichischer Kunsthistoriker/ag. Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart
– Gegenwart in der Kunstgeschichte? Kunsthistoriker l l/12, 1994/1995 (Vicnna,
1996): 8-12.
55
Fig. 3: Emperor Frcderick IIT wearing pointed shoes, manuscript illustration, c. 1485,
© lnstitutfor Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit
of the University of Salzburg (Krems an der Donau, Austria)
In this sense, it is also quite clear that the example of the Bemese dress
regulation from 1 464 and its repetition in 1470 led to problems_ l4 As noted
above, the town authorities had deterrnined that the law agairrst pointed shoes,
short men’s clothes, and the trains of women’s dresses should be valid for
everyone in town. This included the urban nobility, who reacted negatively and
emphasized that thc almighty God, kings, and emperors, even hundreds of years
prior, had ordered that there should be advantages for priests, knights, and
noblemen, a visible difference from others, and that they should be free and
unhindered. Other arguments were that since the creation ofthe world, in heaven
as weil as on earth, there had been such differences and this situation should not
be changed. Members of the nobility had to wear such kinds of dress so that one
might recognise them clearly .15 They could not always use gold and silver in
order to be recognized. However, the members of the nobility were sentenced to
pay a fine and banned from the city for a month. As a result of this ‚ unfriendly‘
act, the noblerneu decided not to come back which led to economic probteins in
the town. A compromise had to be found. The authorities of Bem proclaimed
perrnission for the members of the nobility to wear clothes as they pleased, as
14 See also Jaritz, „Kleidung und Prestige-Konkurrenz,“ 16- 1 7.
15 Yisual sources, therefore, also sometimes show members of the nobility or leading figures
of society as wearing pointed shoes; see fig. 3: Emperor frederick Ili (Armorial, Tyrol, c.
1485. Vienna, Austrian National Library, cod. s.n. 12820, fol. 23v).
56
Jong as their dress was decent – which certainly must have had a broad scope of
meaning. Then the urban nobility returned and the economic problems were
solved.
In the visual representation of the ‚Burning of the Vanities‘ on the occasion
of John Capestran ’s mid-fifteenth-century sermon in Bamberg (fig. 4) 16 one
recognises the vain pointed shoes, moreover, female headgear, board games,
playing cards, and dice being thrown into the fire, all of them objects that were
also regularly discussed and prohibited in urban (sumptuary) laws. Capestran’s
sermons sometimes also seem to have had explicit influences on urban legal
regulations. In 1 452, for instance, the town council of Leipzig proclaimed a law
against pointed shoes, emphasising that they did so because of the sern10ns of
J ohn Capestran and other preachers. 17
Fig. 4: Objects of vanity thrown into the fire on the occasion of John Capistran’s Samberg
sermon, panel painting, c. 1470 (detail), © lnstitutfür Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der
frühen Neuzeit ofthe University of Salzburg (Krems an der Donau, Austria).
16 John Capestran’s Sermon at Samberg and the Burning of the Vanities, panel painting, c.
1470. Bamberg, Staatsgalerie (detail). See Der Bußprediger Capestrano auf dem Domplatz
in Bamberg. Eine Bamberger Tafel um 1470175. Begfeitschrift zur Ausstellung, ed. Hubert
Ruß, Schriften des Historischen Museums Samberg 12 (Bamberg: Historisches Museum,
1 989). For Capestran‘ s arguments about dress, see also: Giovanni da Capestrano – Trattaro
degli Ornamenti Specie del/e Donne, ed. Aniceto Chiappini (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli,
1956), passim.
17 Ernst Kroker, „Leipziger Kleiderordnungen,“ Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft zu
Erforschung Vaterländischer Sprache und Altertümer in Leipzig I 0/5 ( 1 9 1 2): 2 1 -22.
57
References to the connection between sin, the wrath of God, and sumptuous
behaviour to be regulated by secular law, mainly with regard to dress,
continued and sometimes increased in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
legislation. The law of Emperor Maximilian Il for Austria from 1568 that dea1s
with dress, festivities, and gambling, mentions them as having caused the wrath
ofGod and having 1ed to the punishment of the Turks‘ invasion ofthe country. 18
The regu1ation against haughtiness and superfluity in dress enacted in Bem in
Switzerland in 1664 again started with the generat Statement about the sins of
pride, haughtiness, and superfluity that had grovoked God’s wrath and driven
whole cities, countries, and peoples to ruin. 9 The Leipzig dress regulation of
1698, for instance, threatened the rod ofGod’s wrath.20
* * *
To recapitulate and generalise the situation, the following aspects are
evident:
• lnterdependence and the contexts of behaviour, material culture, secular
legal ordinances, and religious discourse can be traced regularly in late
medieval society.
• Any kind of action taking place in public space was particularly worthy of
comment and regulation.
• The prevention of superbia played a relevant role, with dress apparently
being most important. In the religious domain and secular orbit, different
reasons were stressed for needing to prevent pride and haughtiness.
• In their arguments, the secular authorities not only used the economic and
social profit of the community. They also connected them regularly with
references to sin and to averting God’s wrath and punishment.
• Such a context of the discourse could, on the one hand, be used in any
generat argument concerning superbia.
• On the other hand, it was also applied when dealing with specific objects,
mainly in the sphere of fashionable dress and with regard to their form,
like pointed shoes, ladies‘ horned headgear, different types of sleeves,
men’s short clothes, and so on.
18 Codex Austriacus ordine alphabetico compilatus Il, ed. Franz-Anton Edler von Guarient
(Vienna: Voigt, 1 704), 147. Cf. the similar arguments in the seventeenth-century dress regulations
from Hitdesbeim (Eisenbart, Kleiderordnungen der deutschen Städte, 82-83).
19 Die Rechtsquellen des Kantons Bern 1: Stadtrechte, 612: Das Stadtrecht von Bern VI: Staat
und Kirche, ed. Hennann Rennefabn, Sammlung Schweizerischer Rechtsquellen II (Aarau:
Sauerländer, 1 9 6 1 ), 946 ( 1664 VIJ 4).
20 Ernst Kroker, „Leipziger Kleiderordnungen,“ Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur
Erforschung Vaterländischer Sprache und Altertümer 1 015 ( 1 9 1 2): 66. Cf. Eisenbart, Kleiderordnungen,
57-59.
58
• Other groups of sumptuous objects, like prestigious furs, expensive cloth
or fabric, precious jewels, costly gowns, and so on also appeared regularly
in the sumptuary laws with reference to the various Ievels of the social
hierarchy and their gradation, but were less connected with any religious
discourse. There, the social and economic elements seem to have counted
most.
The situation may be summarised in the following way: Mate1ial objects and
their public use affected religious, social, economic, moral, and national
discourses and arguments. Both the Church’s and the secular authorities‘ reasoning
influenced the production and utilization of these material goods and
detennined the laws about them. Any kind of outer appearance in public
space that could Iead to the presentation of luxury, to competition, social
disturbance, and economic decline had to be regula1ised and controlled.
59
AT THEEDGE OFTHE LAW
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
SONDERBAND XXVIII
At the Edge of the Law:
Socially Unacceptable and Illegal Behaviour
in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
Edited by
Suzana Miljan
and
Gerhard Jaritz
Krems 2012
MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG
DER ABTEILUNG KULTUR UND WISSENSCHAFT DES AMTES DER
NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
KULTUR 1!\ NIEDERÖSTERREICH ‚W
Copy editor: Judith Rassan
Cover illustration:
Justitia: St Michael and the Virgin Mary
Pembroke College, Cambridge
(Photo: Mirko Sardelic)
Alle Rechte vorbehalten
-ISBN 978-3-901 094-30-X
Herausgeber: Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der materiellen
Kultur des Mittelalters, Körnennarkt 13, 3500 Krems, Österreich. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich
zeichnen die Autoren, ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmungjeglicher Nachdruck,
auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist.
Druck: KOPJTU Ges. m. b. H., Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, 1050 Wien.
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Damir Km·bic, The Thin Border Between Justice and Revenge,
Order and Disorder: Vraida (Enmity) and Institutional Violence
in Medieval Croatia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Marija Karbic, Women on the Wrong Side ofthe Law.
Some Examples from Medieval Urban Settlements
of the Sava and Drava Interomnium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1
Sabine Florence Fabijanec, Ludus zardorum:
Moral and Legal Frameworks of Gambling
along the Adriatics in the Middle Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 I
Gerhard Jaritz, Outer Appearance,
Late Medieval Public Space, and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Zoran Ladic, C1iminal Behaviour by Pilgrims
in the Middle Ag es and Early Modern Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Paul Freedman, Atrocities and Executions
of the Peasant Rebe! Leaders
in Late Medieval and Early Modem Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Lovorka Coralic, Unacceptable Social Behaviour or False Accusations:
Croats in the lnvestigations of the Venetian Inquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Slaven Bertosa, Robbers, Murderers, and Condemned Men in lstria
(from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Preface
This publication contains selected papers from a conference held in
Zagreb (Centre for Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb) in 2009, dealing with
the medieval and early modem period, and translated into English for this
purpose. • The main goal was to gather papers on a topic that has not been
researched enough amongst Croatian historians, that is, the socially unacceptable
and illegal behaviour of individuals who were „walking at the edge of the
law.“ The general idea was also to present various research questions at the
intersection of social and legal history, from the problern of feuding in medieval
society to the various types of delinquency by pilgrims. The emphasis was put
on the Croatian territory in the Middle Ages (from Slavonia to lstria and Dalmatia)
and set in a broader (East) Centrat European context. The articles follow
a chronological sequence, starting from the High Middle Ages, with a particular
focus on the late medieval and early modern period.
The first paper is by Damir Karbic, who dcals with the use of violencc as
a means of obtaining justice and re-establishing order, which was one of the
peculiarities of the medieval legal system when compared with Roman law.
After presenting different cases of feuds in Croatian sources, he discusses, how
medieval communal legislation treated feuds as a separate legal institute, using
the example of the city statutes of Split.
Marija Karbic concentrates on the ways in which women from the
medieval urban settlements of the Sava and Drava interamnium came into
conflict with the law by various criminal actions, from insults or brawls to
abo11ion and murder. She connects those problems with the economic situation
of these women, basing the analysis mainly on theft and prostitution cases. The
women were sometimes punished severely, but sometimes pardoned or punished
minimally.
The problern of gambling along the eastem Adriatic coast is the research
subject of Sabine Florence Fabijanec. She analyses the urban statutory regulations
Stretching from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centUJy. She deals with the
adoption of legal provisions against gambling and shows the diversity of approach
to gambling from city to city.
Gerhard Jaritz analyses the interdependence between Jate medieval
material culture, human behaviour, religious discourse, and legal culture using
the example of actions connected with superbio that played a role in public
• The Croation version of the conference proceedings is publisbed as Suzana Miljan (ed.), Na
rubu zakona: dru§tveno i pravno neprihvatljiva pona§anja kroz povijest, Biblioteka Dies
historiae, vol. 3 (Zagrcb: Hrvatski studiji, 2009).
7
urban arguments. The secular authorities emphasized moral, national, and religious
components, highlighting the necessity of averting God’s wrath.
The perception of the behaviour of pilgrims is the topic of Zoran LadiC’s
contribution. He shows, in cantrast to the idealized vision of pilgrimages and
pilgrims, that pilgrimages made by average medieval or early modem believers
were also considered superstition and that the pilgtims often engaged in fights,
robberies, prostitution, and other forrns of delinquent behaviour.
Paul Freedman offers an ariicle on late medieval and early modem public
acts of torture and execution, which were carefully choreographed events whose
solemnity and meticulous preparation made the infliction of mutilation and
death horrifyingly impressive. He also concentrates on the various topoi of peasant
rebellion as described by literate contemporaries, such as rape, murder,
cannibalism, the roasting of victims, and so on.
Lovorka Coralic deals with Croats accused in the records of the Venetian
Inquisition. Four types of accusation can be recognized: conversion to Islam,
Protestantism, the use ofmagic, and conduct considered improper for clergymen
(priests and other mcmbers of religious orders).
The last article is by Slaven Bertosa, dealing with poor social conditions
in Istria in the early modem period that led to hunger, poverty, depopulation,
and generat insecurity, which in rum provoked dangeraus behaviour, robbery,
and murder. Capital crimes were under the jurisdiction of the Potesta and
Captain of Koper or, respcctively, the Captain of Raspor with his seat in Buzet.
The village communities were also starting to organize themselves by introducing
patrols, although in a modest way.
The collection of articles tries to popularise the topics for one plain
purpose, that is, to erase the border between history and legal studies, since until
now one carmot actually speak of „interdisciplinarity,“ but only of looking at
many research problems from various reference points. Hopefully, this volume
will be useful not only for historians dealing with this poorly researched topic of
(Croatian) historiography, but also for a wider public generally interested in the
functioning of the legal and social system in the past.
Finally, my special gratitude goes to Judith Rassou for copy editing the
volume and to Gerhard Jaritz for offering the opportunity to publish it as a
special issue of Medium Aevum Quotidianum, thus promoting this research on
an intemational level.
Suzana Miljan
8