The gratia and the expansion of politics in fourteenth-century Lucca.
Date
2012
Authors
Nakaya, So
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Publisher
The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS)
Abstract
The book of banniti of 1356 indicates that the criminal judge of the Podest pronounced 256 bans and condemnations and 69 absolutions in that year. And the notary who held this book cancelled 208 of the 256 bans and condemnations by striking off the names of banniti et condemnati, with a line through their names. It was important for those convicted to ensure that their names were removed, because if they were left in the book of the banniti this meant that they were excluded from communal law and justice, and therefore anyone could attack them with impunity. The marginal notes made beside each cancellation indicated the reasons for removing the ban. Among the various reasons, such as the payment of whole fines or reduction of fines by making peace with victims, we can see the instructions to rescind or reduce penalties made by the executive council of Anziani. A chapter of the city statute of 1308, in which the ways of cancellation of bans and condemnations called rebannimentum were prescribed, had already taken into account the cancellations of bannum that resulted from the councils decrees, as well as the full payment and the over-ruling of the judgment in appellate court. In fourteenth-century Lucca, while convicts rarely complained to the appellate court in criminal cases, probably because of limitations set by the statutes, they frequently appealed to political authorities for extra-judicial remissions. In this paper, I shall consider the cancellation of bans and condemnations in essence the cancellation of penalties due to political and extra-judicial decisions, calling it the gratia.
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Citation
The gratia and the expansion of politics in fourteenth-century Lucca,1017-3455,The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.