Public Justice and the Criminal Trial in Late Medieval Italy

By Joanna Carraway Vitiello.

Reggio Emilia in the Visconti Age. “Medieval public justice was characterized by its inherent tensions: tensions between a system designed for crime control and a society accustomed to self-help, and tensions between an ideal of public justice and a culture of private retribution. Criminal jurisdiction served as a primary marker of political authority, and the late medieval criminal court became a nexus of power at many levels—signorial, communal, and judicial. It was also a place where the lives of people from all walks of life came into direct contact with the results of the high medieval legal revolution, which yielded inquisition procedure. In the late middle ages, the dynamic created by these fundamental tensions would transform the history of criminal justice.”

Brill (2016) 232p.