Burgfried (judicial district)
Burgfried (also Purgkhfridt , Purgkhfryd , purckhfridtsrechteigkheit , Burgfriede , Burgfrieden ) is a term from the court organization of the Middle Ages and the early modern period up to the 18th century.
area
It refers to areas of land (castles, farms, residential buildings and their surroundings) that formed a separate judicial district and were thus excluded from the jurisdiction of the generally competent court ( exemt ).
In a castle keep, the respective landlord himself had the right to decide certain matters and to impose penalties without having to go to another court. As a rule, a keep established the right to exercise lower jurisdiction without outside influence. It thus formed a privilege of the respective landlord, but also of his subjects, not to have to face other courts. This could initially result in material advantages if trips to distant court locations were not necessary. Which further effects were derived from this can only be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Outside a castle keep, the lower jurisdiction was mostly with members of the estates .
right
The rights included in a keep varied and could change over time. There were castle trees, the owners of which were only entitled to apprehend and extradite criminals, but not to take evidence or other procedural steps. The privilege of these keep was essentially (only) that the staff of the responsible judge (and the judge himself) were not allowed to enter the keep area. Other keeps also had the right of “ embarrassing questioning ” (torture) or other fact-finding rights for the judicial process.
The rights of a keep could go so far that five of the seven necessary witnesses (“sifting”) were already heard in the keep, the (actually responsible) district judge only heard two more “and the culprit was only wrapped with the belt to carry out the sentence delivered ”. Trees with such rights have already been sometimes referred to as “regional courts”, and it is difficult to distinguish between the actual regional courts (whose legal basis was not a manorial power) in practice. In the 18th century, the distinction between privileged and unprivileged keep rights arose from the different keep rights, whereby the powers of the unprivileged keep were equated with the roof right and these keep were called "Dachtraufburgfriede".
People who were accused of an act that no longer fell within the competence of the keep (e.g. serious crimes that were subject to blood jurisdiction ) were extradited to the competent authority at specifically defined locations at the border of a keep and taken over by it.
organization
Keeping a castle was not necessarily associated with owning a castle . As a rule, they were also awarded to owners of castles and palaces to a greater or lesser extent in terms of area, but cities, monasteries and other manors, such as B. those of private individuals, castle tidies awarded.
A keep could encompass an entire manor. In the district of a district court, there could be several keepes of different manors and of different sizes.
In addition to the penal powers derived from a castle keep, the other rights continued to exist that resulted from the legal status of a manorial lordship to its subjects . In a castle keep, criminal and administrative matters had to be dealt with jointly by the manor. The rights of a castle keep could be extended to other forms of jurisdiction up to and including blood jurisdiction, which generally belonged to the regional courts. A castle keep (or parts of it) could become an independent district court district. This resulted in a partial strong fragmentation of the judicial districts in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Records of truce can be found in court descriptions, arable , boundary descriptions and archives of manors. Summarizing records of the areas in which which tidies existed and with which rights these were associated exist in different forms for a number of countries or areas of rule. For example, Styrian castle tidies are published in a court description from 1914, to which an addendum appeared in 1987.
The term has nothing to do with the term Burgfrieden , which describes the (peaceful) behavior of the parties to the dispute in a specific place, thus a kind of armistice , on the contrary: A Burgfried gave the entitled person the right to intervene in this right from within or from fend off outside with violence. In terms of content, the word keep has nothing to do with the “castle keep” either. It denotes the part of a castle (also defense tower , residential tower , donjon ) but can be confused with castle peace.
literature
- Anton Mell : High and Low Criminal Jurisdictions. District courts and castle tidies in Styria. In: Anton Mell, Hans Pirchegger: Styrian court descriptions . As sources for the Historical Atlas of the Austrian Alpine Countries. I. Department. District court map: Styria. In the series: Sources on the constitutional and administrative history of Styria . I. Volume. Published by the Historical State Commission for Styria. Graz 1914, pages XIX-XLIV .
- Anton Mell, Hans Pirchegger: Map of the regional courts and keepes in Styria. Enclosure to: Mell / Pirchegger: Styrian court descriptions .
- Eduard Richter, Anton Mell, Julius Strnadt , Hans Pirchegger: Historical Atlas of the Austrian Alpine Countries. I. Department: The District Court Card. Published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Published by Adolf Holzhausen. Vienna 1906 ff. Explanations on this Vienna 1917.
- Walter Brunner: Regional court and castle keep descriptions. Supplements to the “Styrian court descriptions.” Communications from the Styrian Provincial Archives Graz. Volume 37, year 1987. Pages 71-89 (PDF).
- Franz Pichler: The land register, land register records and land registers of Styria. Complete directory. With the exclusion of the dominions and authorities of the former Lower Styria. Taking into account the landscape tax registers, the “Validity 1542” and the Theresian tax rectification. Publications of the Steiermärkisches Landesarchives, Volume 3: Part I (A-J, 1967, pages 1-630), II (KR, 1977, pages 631-1232), III (S-Z, 1985, pages 1233-1816). Graz 1967–1985. Franz Pichler and Walther Reithoffer with the collaboration of Dorothea Wiesenberger and Andrea Gruber: Name and subject index. Part IV. Graz 1995.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karina Otte: Legal basis of the credibility assessment of witnesses in criminal proceedings. Lit publishing house. Münster 2002. Juristische Schriftenreihe 194. ISBN 3-8258-6304-2 (Dissertation Heidelberg 2002) page 30. ( Otte, Credibility, page 30 in the Google book search)
- ^ Hans Pirchegger: Styria. In: Eduard Richter, Anton Mell, Julius Strnadt, Hans Pirchegger: Explanations of the Historical Atlas of the Austrian Alpine Countries. I. Department: The District Court Card. Part 1: Salzburg, Upper Austria, Styria. Published by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Published by Adolf Holzhausen. Vienna 1917. page 193.
- ^ Mell: criminal jurisdiction. Page XXVIII .
- ↑ Using the example of the Ober-Wildon regional court: Mell, Pirchegger: court descriptions . Page 233.
- ^ Mell: criminal jurisdiction. Page XXIV –XXVIII.
- ↑ a b keep . In: Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm : German Dictionary (DWB). Volume 2 Biermörder – Dwatsch, Leipzig 1860, column 542, line 75. Reprint Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 5945, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-05945-1 . Structure quoted from: The digital Grimm - Electronic edition of the first processing . Version 12/04. Zweiausendeins , Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-86150-628-9 , competence center for electronic indexing and publication processes in the humanities at the University of Trier in conjunction with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.