Crime and Punishment

Ideas about what was a crime and how crimes should be punished changed considerably during the Renaissance. As many countries adopted ancient Roman legal codes, the task of defining crime shifted from the community and the church to the monarch. Roman law also provided new methods for investigating crimes. Those found guilty faced punishments ranging from fines to execution.

Defining Crime. During the Middle Ages, each community had its own set of legal standards. The definition of a crime depended on local standards of behavior. The only exceptions were crimes of morality, or sins, which depended on the laws of the church. However, in the late Middle Ages, these standards began to change. First Italy, then most other parts of western Europe, adopted some aspects of ancient Roman law, which gave the monarch the power to outlaw acts. Therefore, during the Renaissance, the state had complete authority to define crimes, even crimes of morality.

The justice system divided unlawful acts into two categories: crimes against people and crimes against property. Crimes against people, the more common type, ranged from verbal insults to rape and murder. Insults were considered a form of violence in a society where words often led to blows. Acts of violence almost always involved some kind of weapon. Most men who were not members of the clergy carried a weapon, if only a heavy stick. The law treated crimes of violence as more serious if they led to a flare-up in a vendetta, an ongoing feud between families. Crimes against monarchs, such as attempted assassinations, carried the most severe punishments of all.

Crimes against property, though less common than those against people, increased during the 1500s. The most common property crime was theft, which ranged from stealing a loaf of bread at a market to failing to repay a debt. The crime of highway robbery posed a special problem in the countryside because, unlike theft in the city, it always involved the use of deadly weapons. Roving gangs of brigands, or bandits, presented an even more serious threat. The size and number of these lawless bands required special armed forces to hunt them down, at considerable cost. Another type of property crime involved hunting, fishing, or grazing sheep on another person's property—or the state's property—without a permit.

Trying Crime. Two different methods of trying crime existed side by side during the Renaissance. The accusatorial method, a carryover from the Middle Ages, gradually gave way to the newer inquisitorial method, based on Roman law. In the accusatorial procedure, the plaintiff—the person who brought a charge to court—had to investigate and prove the case against the accused. A plaintiff who failed to prove the case had to suffer the same punishment the accused would have received if convicted. In addition, the unsuccessful plaintiff had to pay court costs. This form of prosecution gave little power to judges.

Italian towns first adopted the inquisitorial method in the 1100s. By 1500, it had spread to most of western Europe. In this method, government-appointed judges investigated the case, attempting to sort out the truth. The quality of judges varied throughout Europe. In England, Germany, and some parts of Italy, many judges had no legal training. France and other areas of Italy, by contrast, placed trained legal experts on the bench.

A person accused of a crime had either to pay bail—which most people could not afford—or to await trial in jail. By law, prisoners had to pay for their own upkeep in jail, but most could not afford this either. As a result, the government had to support the prisoners, and it often underfed them to save money. Suspected criminals were frequently tortured to obtain confessions and reduce the amount of time they spent in jail. A confession was usually the only evidence the system could produce against an accused person.

Punishing Crime. Renaissance societies had a variety of possible punishments for crime. Although penalties depended largely on the nature of the crime, several other factors played a role. The law dealt differently with commoners and nobles, foreigners and natives, men and women. The status of both criminal and victim influenced the level of punishment. For instance, crimes against royalty resulted in more severe punishment than similar crimes against other people. By contrast, crimes committed by royalty and other members of the aristocracy* often went unpunished.

The typical punishment for a minor violation was a fine. For insults that led to violence, the law laid out a carefully calculated scale of fines, based on how much damage the insult had caused. However, the law seldom imposed fines on poor people. Instead, it imposed penalties such as confinement—requiring a person to remain within a specific area in the state for a fixed period of time. In the 1500s, the town of Florence relied heavily on confinement as a punishment for both rich and poor. This form of punishment affected people of different classes more equally than fines, which imposed a much heavier burden on the poor.

Exile and imprisonment were penalties for serious crimes, such as a violent crime within the family. The state reserved execution for the most dangerous criminals, such as murderers, brigands, and career criminals. Those involved in an attack on the monarch also might face execution.