Legal Structure Flashcards
What impact did the Papal Bull have on the legal structure?
Declared witchcraft as a Crimen exceptum
Removed all legal limits on the application of torture in cases where evidence was difficult to find
Showed the Pope’s support for hunting witches
Why is the lex talonis significant?
Development of the inquisition allowed the reversal of the lex talonis - previously the law punished people for making false accusation
Therefore encouraged accusations
Why were the rules of torture relaxed?
Was this significant?
Because Maleficium was so difficult to prove, the rules became relaxed whereby suspicion would be enough to sanction torture
If this development and adoption of the inquisitorial procedure had been prevented the “witch- craze would never had claimed its countless victims” - Levack
Also beliefs that witches could withstand the pain
What were the previous rules of torture?
The accused should be subject to a single session of torture of no more than a days duration
It was no permissible to torture pregnant women and children
These rules were abandoned during the witch craze
Evidence of relaxed torture in Germany?
A statement shows a hangman telling a accused witch that he will torture her for “half a year, or a year, for your whole life until you confess, and if you will not confess I shall torture you to death”
How could torture and confession trigger hundreds more of accusations
Established belief in the Sabbat and pacts with the Devil
One persons confession could name hundreds of other witches at the Saabbat
Methods of torture?
In Germany many courts used the Witches Chair which was heated with fire from below
Force feeding prisoners with large a aunts of water
Sleep deprivation (Britain)
Filling nostrils with lime and water
Strappado
How does the Legal structure help to explain the similarity of confessions across Europe?
Interrogators now allowed to asking leading questions ( usually sourced from demonologies)
Questions that provide the bases for their answers
What does the legal structure not help to explain
Why people confessed freely without torture
