The history of the torture in Germany

In the lay jurisdiction the torture in Germany became since beginning 14. Century practices. It developed up to the end of the Middle Ages as means of the criminal procedure right and was usually in such a way defined: a brought by a judge rightfully on cross-examine with application of physical means of coercion for the purpose of the study of the truth about a crime. After medieval view a condemnation could take place either due to the statement of two reliable eye-witnesses or due to a confession (thus against a common opinion the only possible judgement basis was not). However bare indications could, even if they referred still so compellingly to the debt of the accused, or do not justify the statement of a only one - it is also still so reliable - witness a condemnation (against the latter spoke in the opinion the Middle Ages and the early modern times some indeed clear Bible places such as Deuteronomium 17, 6; 19,5 and 18, 16). The torture was called usually as Marter, torture, question in the severity and/or question in the sharpness or embarrassing question (the latter was called actually criminal cross-examine, the word "agony "had at that time according to its origin from latin poena the meaning of punishment). The torture was not a punishment, but a measure of the criminal procedure right and should a decision basis supply.

The historical roots of the torture of the German late Middle Ages originally lie in the Roman right, that the torture only opposite slaves, since that 1. after-Christian century knew however with majesty crimes (laesae crimen maiestatis), thus with high treason, also opposite citizens. The German leaning word "torture "deduces itself also from latin word poledrus (Fohlen), the name for horse-similar torture equipment. There were two ways, on which Roman right was imported into the German right of the Middle Ages.

On the one hand it was the church right, itself, according to the center of the Pope church in Rome, since more jeher at the Roman right had oriented (noticing set: Ecclesia vivit puts romana - the church lives after Roman right). If church fathers and Popes before the turn of the century had still expressly rejected the use of torture, then changed in the high-medieval fight of the church against the movements of the Katharer (main group: Albigenser) and the Waldenser. 1252 issued Pope Innozenz IV. its famous-notorious bull Ad extirpanda to force in which it the municipalities of north Italy continued, the heresy the suspicious persons with the help of the torture to the confession of their mistakes "without them the members to smash and without it to mortal danger bring ". This late since completely Italy expanded and by later Popes confirmed arrangement became in 13. Century also in Germany in the church criminal procedure applied by the lay authorities obligated to it, as we from papers taught to know.

The second way, which led to the assumption of the Roman right into the German medieval right, was the Rezeption in such a way specified. The right of the German Middle Ages was coined/shaped predominantly through - only partly in writing laid down - customary law, which developed locally and temporally quite differently and not scientific-systematically justified and rationally filled was. Into Italy against it one reached since 12 beginning. Century, particularly at the university of Bologna, due to one in the 11. Handwriting of a large Roman right collection from that 6 rediscovered century. Century (corpus iuris civilis, complete work of the lay right) on the old-Roman right back, which could look back at the exit of the antique ones on a thousand-year old development. Also in Germany, where lay rule carriers had to argue again and again with church mechanisms and of them legally trained clerics, one sent now students for the study - in Germany not existing - of the jurisprudence increased to Italian universities. They occurred after conclusion of their studies as carriers of Roman-legal conceptions the German law practice.

Causes

To these theoretical foundations of the application of tortures in Germany for instance 14 came since that. Century also practical needs of the crime prevention in addition. The dissolution of old master and kinship structures had led to more social and also local mobility, with which also an intensified criminality development accompanied. Becoming impoverished knights, around-pulling land farmhands, driving Scholaren, moving Handwerksbur, Gaukler, beggars and other driving people made the highways uncertain, armed robberies and murders were at the agenda. "The landharmful people in such a way specified "formed a partly organized Gewerbs and Gewohnheitsverbrechertum, which developed more and more to general land troubles. It threatened trade and change and with it the bases of the prosperity particularly in the cities, for which the fight of the criminality became therefore a vitally necessaryness. The traditional German criminal procedure right was to a large extent unfit for an effective crime prevention. It had been based on the conception that the reaction to committed injustice was alone thing of the concerning and its kinship. Crime prevention had been at all no public task. The legal order had put regulated forms for its argument (oath, God judgement, duel) to the involved ones at the disposal, but to a procedure it had come long time only on complaint of the concerning or its kinship. It had always concerned procedures, which came only on a private complaint to conditions: It applied the Akkusationsprinzip (principle of the accusation by a private one). Where no plaintiff, there no judge - this today still for the German civil proceedings valid principle was appropriate long time also for the criminal procedure right to reason. For the fight against "the landharmful people "this type of procedure was to a large extent unsuitable. The Ingangsetzung of a procedure depended thereafter on it, whether someone was ready, a complaint with all thereby also for the plaintiff connected risks (revenge, payment of damages) to raise. Thus one seized the Inquisitionsverfahren in such a way specified (of Latin inquirere = investigate) on another procedure type back, which had likewise developed in the church, i.e., with that the authority on his part the procedure on set and with that it no more around a formal proof (by oath, God judgement, duel - which had latter both evidence the church in the fourth Laterankonzil forbidden of 1215 anyhow) went, but around the material truth. The proof by two eye-witnesses played thereby in practice no important role. He could come only to the course, if the criminal had let itself be observed with his act of two witnesses and if it had been awkward enough to let these witnesses survive. Thus straight became also in the Inquisitionsverfahren the confession of the accused one of "the queen of all evidence ", and the confession one procured in the doubt evenly with the help of that to the imported Roman right in the best way admitted itself torture.

For all these reasons the torture in the course of the late Middle Ages spread to Roman realm of German nation almost in the entire holy one, partly due to of the emperor of granted privileges. The overview on the top right indicates the year or the time of the first occupied case of torture for a set of places and/or areas. With these places or areas it cannot have concerned islands of the application of tortures in an otherwise torture-free landscape. Not all cases of the torture use were noted in writing, by far not all recordings preserved remained, and do not receive remained are investigated yet all.

Articles in category "Torture"

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