Rules, Behaviors, Sanctions. Means of Manifestation of Juridical Authority in Moldavia in the First Decades of the 19th century

The article analyses the judicial practice in medieval and pre-modern Moldavia, with a special focus on the ways in which the ruler, as a supreme judicial authority, created the mechanism of social control through law. Eventually, justice was called to regulate the behaviours that did not pay attention to the rules (customs, norms) by which the Moldavian society of the period was governed. Although the princely institution lost its previous prestige due to the Phanariot regime, the ruler preserved his status as the supreme juridical authority of the realm. However, during the 19th century, the death sentence became increasingly rare, probably due to the injunction of the Porte. The means of manifestation of the princely power in Moldavia, as it emerges from the research of the sources of the first three decades of the 19th century, derive from the very authority of the ruler. The prince used all the means, including the symbolic ones, in an attempt to impose the social control. From this perspective, respect for the law was an essential tool, supported by a judicial apparatus composed of dignitaries and servants with limited executive and judicial powers.