PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Assesses extant account books on the apparatus of justice in the German city of Constance in order to analyze the execution of sentences imposed for ordinary crimes in the mid-15th century. The account books indicate the effectiveness of the administrative structure of the city in guaranteeing execution of the sentences. The executive branch of municipal government had almost total control over execution of the sentences imposed by the various courts and worked with patience, negotiating with the delinquents so that they would fulfill their responsibilities and persisting for years in seeing to it that fines were paid and the guilty did not escape the clutches of ordinary justice. One reason for this efficiency certainly lay in the patience of the Strafherren, made possible by a different method of keeping accounts that allowed for payments distributed over years. Another factor was a complex culture of negotiation, commutation, and modification of sentences, allowing them to be adapted to the needs and capabilities of the delinquents.