Johann Christoph Frölich of Frölichsburg

J. Chr. Frölich v. Frölichsburg - excerpt from the title page of the Nemesis

Johann Christoph Frölich von Frölichsburg (* 1657 in Innsbruck ; † May 1729 there ) was an Austrian scholar of criminal law. He came from a long-established Innsbruck family. After completing his law degree at the Alma Mater in Innsbruck, he worked as a lawyer in his hometown. After a long stay in Vienna, he returned to Tyrol in 1683 and became city judge and fiefdom judge in Rattenberg .

In 1695 he took over the chair of institutions at the University of Innsbruck , then, three years later, the chair of pandects and feudal law. He was twice rector and six times dean. Frölich was strongly influenced by Italian legal theory, and the original standard works there were very familiar to him, and some of them he had even translated into German.

Equipped with this basic knowledge, and based on the Tyrolean and Lower Austrian provincial regulations as well as the neck court regulations of Charles V, in 1696 he drafted a guideline for the criminal process "for the authorities charged with criminal matters", which was entitled Nemesis Romano-Austriaco-Tyrolensis im Southern Germany found wide distribution and was published repeatedly. This work and the following commentary on the Embarrassing Neck Court Regulations of Charles V has significantly influenced the jurisprudence in criminal matters and has led to more legal certainty, as with this work the judges also received clear guidelines for the first time for those offenses in which they could judge at their own discretion.

In 1702 Frölich was raised to the nobility by Frölichsburg. When the government appointed him regimental councilor in 1706, he left the university and devoted himself to the state administration. He soon became administrator of the Chancellery, and in 1724 Emperor Charles VI appointed him. finally to the Chancellor of Tyrol.

In the literature, von Frölichsburg is referred to as a “humanly feeling criminal lawyer” who warned in his comment against excessive use of torture without, of course, completely deviating from this type of “finding the truth”.

Like Carpzov , Frölich was still caught up in the witchcraft belief of his time. However, it can he be counted as income that he suggested authorities responsible for the implementation of criminal trials authorities to exercise utmost caution in the use of torture, "so it gleichsamb impossible fallet to verfellen someone innocent." The Salzburg Magic Jacks processes , which mainly begging children fell victim to, he regarded as legally harmless.

According to the cadastre from 1780, Frölich von Frölichsburg owned the house at Innstrasse 23 in Innsbruck. He died in May 1729 at the age of 72.

Works

Title page of Frölich's commentary on the embarrassing neck court order of Charles V.

• Nemesis romano-austriaco-tyrolensis. [This is brief, but thorough instruction, as in the judicial ambition of an investigation or inquisition process, depending on the occasion and origin of Upper Austria: and VÖ: Principality and Landen, also content of the Tyrolean statutes, Nider-Österreichischer Land: and Embarrassing neck -Court order Carl the Fifth, then to bring common written rights from beginning to end with legal order to protocol and to be carried out. Printed in Innsbruck by Jacob Christoph Wagner, Kaiserlicher Hof-Buchdrucker, 1696]
• Tractatus iuridicus de diversis ac temporalibus praescriptionibus statutariis Tyrolensibus, [Kempten 1702]. -
• Commentarius in Kayser Carl deß Fünfften and deß H. Röm. Reichs Embarrassing Neck Court Order, Innsbruck, 1709 (often reprinted, e.g. Frankfurt 1714; Frankfurt / Leipzig 1759, Dip. DCCXXXI).
• Manuscripts: Instruction before a regional court authority ( University and Regional Library Tyrol , Cod. 858; Cod. 1120). - De processu summario (University and State Library of Tyrol, ULBT, Cod. 1121).

Remarks

1. ↑ Heinz Moser: The executioners of Tyrol. P. 18.
2. ↑ Helga Staudinger: Official scheme of the three o.ö. Wesen under Karl VI., Dissertation Innsbruck 1967, 213, 222. - 1968, 478 f.
3. ↑ Hans Hochenegg, J.Ch Froelich von Froelichsburg, a criminal lawyer who feels human, in studies on legal, economic and cultural history, X, Innsbruck 1974, pp. 61–65.
4. ↑ Nikolaus Grass: On the position of Tyrol in legal history, p. 268.
5. ^ Behringer: witch hunt . 1997, ISBN 3-486-53903-5 , pp. 346 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
6. ↑ Veronika Gruber: The structural development of Innsbruck in the 19th century (publications of the Innsbruck city archive), new series, volume 7, p. 309.