The death sentence in the medieval judicial practice: Western Europe

The article is devoted to the study of the practice of imposing death sentences and their execution in the medieval Western European judicial system. The evolution of the specifics of the appointment and principles of the application of death sentences in criminal proceedings in Western Europe in the Middle Ages is analyzed. It has been found that the death penalty was widely accepted in the medieval West as the ultimate punishment for a long list of crimes. The Christian Church did not hesitate to sentence those accused of the crime of heresy to the death penalty, although execution always remained within the competence of the secular branch of government. It is noted that due to the reception of Roman or common law, personal revenge and monetary compensation as part of the punishment system of early medieval feudal societies gave way to punishment as a public consequence of a crime from the 13th century. The authors believe that the state authorities gradually expanded their intervention in regulating the mechanism of revenge by assigning exclusive competence to consider certain types of crimes exclusively by royal courts (“royal cases”) and introducing a ban on any violence during certain periods (“God’s peace”). It is noted that as a result of the transition from private to public administration of justice, the imposition of death sentences became a privilege of the state. The introduction of a new criminal philosophy, according to which cruel and public punishment was intended to have a punitive and deterrent function, was supposed to generate fear, and this fear was supposed to deter future criminal acts. Court records demonstrate a diverse and inventive typology of methods of execution of criminals (hanging, beheading, drowning, burning at the stake, and shooting with arrows). It is concluded that 1) the death penalty in Western Europe acquired in the Middle Ages the character of a ritual, a public theatrical spectacle (preparation of the condemned to death, taking to the gallows, execution, public display of the corpse, burial); 2) the public application of the death penalty was intended to assert the power and control of the monarchy over justice; 3) in the late Middle Ages, replacing the death penalty with exile, payment of a fine, service in the army or in the galleys became a common practice.