Assize

Assizes ( altfrz. Assise , participle to asseoir "settle", from lat. Assidere "beisitzen") is a constitutional concept of the Middle Ages originally for festive gatherings and meetings in which the legal issues were settled, but (also for the results of such meetings laws , Regulations and also the penalties ). Later it was used to designate juries in English and then again in French law until the 19th century .

Jury courts with lay judges in France ( Cour d'assises ), Belgium ( Cour d'assises or Hof van assisen ), Italy ( Corte d'assise ) and Switzerland are still called “Assisenhof” .

Change of concept

After the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey von Bouillon had the statutes for his courts of justice (the court court and the regional court) drafted in solemn sessions and therefore the corresponding file is called Assises de Jerusaleme . Even the taxes granted by the assemblies of asses were called assisa , and the penalties granted by the courts of asses were called assises .

With the French Normans , the word assize migrated to England and denoted the quarterly court sessions which the twelve judges of England held traveling around the counties, and these were juries that had to decide all civil and criminal matters.

The name of assises for jury courts returned to France from England when Saint Louis stipulated that public court sessions should be held at certain times to deal with complaints from vassals or subjects about their officials as well as appeals against judgments of lower courts.

These courts of assistance dealt with both civil and criminal cases and are divided into so-called grandes assises and petites assises (large and small assises ). The jury courts that had been set up in all French departments since the French Revolution had developed from the Institute of the Assizes . Even after the defeat of Napoleon and the reorganization of the borders, the courts of assize remained in the former French possessions on the left bank of the Rhine.