Conflicts, confessions, and contracts
Subtitle: diocesan justice in late fifteenth-century Carpentras
By: by Elizabeth L. Hardman
Series: Studies in medieval and reformation traditions -- volume 205; Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions -- v. 205.
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9789004310674; 9789004329683
Subjects: Administration of Justice; History; Ecclesiastical courts
Description: Diocesan Justice in Late Fifteenth-Century Carpentras' uses notarial records from the 1480s to reconstruct the procedures, caseload, and sanctions of the bishop's court of Carpentras and compare them to other secular and ecclesiastical courts. The court provided a robust forum for debt litigation utilized by a wide variety of people. Its criminal proceedings focused on recividist clerics who engaged in fights, disobedience, anti-Jewish activities, and sexual transgressions. Its justice varied depending on whether cases involved violence, sex, or contracts. The judge applied sanctions gingerly and protected litigants' rights carefully, in ways we might not expect: his role was to intervene in, explore, and document conflicts, and to elicit confessions and mediate disputes. Participants exploited this narrative and archival space well.
Notes: Based on author's thesis (doctoral - Fordham Univeristy, 2010), issued under title: Justice, Jurisdiction and Choice: The Fifteenth-Century Church Courts of Carpentras.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 240-260) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The accused and the court : confrontations and legal spaces; title: "De verbis ad verbera" : wounded honor, interpersonal violence, and exculpatory narratives; title: Disciplining the clergy : personal sins and public challenges; title: Civil litigation : a space of registration and mediation; title: The court as a judicial space : coercion and compliance, sanctioning and sentencing; title: Conclusion; title: Appendix: transcriptions of select cases.