Depends in what country and at what time during the middle ages.
England had a jury of 12 people +judge quite early (1150-1200).
In the HRE a supreme court of sorts was established in 1495 only 90 or so years after this game takes place.
Corrupt judges could be dealt with within limited scope.
The whole trial by ordeal, combat, water, fire etc. was already falling out of favor across the continent in the thirteenth and fourteenth century especially by the clergy who saw it as nonsense and abusing gods name.
Sure, but the supreme court wouldn’t rule about stuff happening in a small town with no important characters involved. And of course theory didn’t match practice in medieval times: a poor man or peasant couldn’t easily appeal to the Reichkammergericht for example. Reality looked a bit different I guess…
Well no probably not but I think peasants were less inclined to murder other people too. Most legal disputes would be about land ownership and such, not some mad man walking in your house killing all your chicken and bashing every piece of pottery.
Do you mean mean it’s of no relevance if there is any evidence? Assuming the player character manages to kill 5 NPCs perfectly stealthy i think i’d be weird if there was no doubt that he did it. In Gothc 3 for example the guards confront you after you stole a certain amount of stuff in a singe settlement regardless if there where any witnesses. This is particularly weird in ‘Gotha’ where you have the opportunity to loot it before it’s resettled when there are absolutely no witnesses around. I don’t want to protect the players from the consequences of their actions and I don’t want the NPCs to just ignore it when they start dying. There supposed to be suspicious but they shouldn’t simply turn hostile to everyone because an unknown person killed them.
Do you mean ‘Landesherr’? I think Landlords are more about rents. The english wikipedia page of ‘Landesherr’ is called ‘Territorial lord’. The player may start out as the son of a blacksmith but he might increase in Rank or simple still be of use to the people in charge. Obliviously they still would have him killed if there was enough evidence against him but if there was doubt reputation and connections to the nobility, which the player character seems to have to some extent in the gameplay-stream, might make a trial by ordeal possible.
The real question is how crime is generally handled by the game a believable trial by ordeal might just be a lot of effort and little yield.
One thing to keep in mind in all of this is that Medieval villages were small. You probably new every single person who lived there, how long they lived there, who their parents were, etc. If a stranger comes into town, and suddenly things start turning up missing or townsfolk start to disappear, guess who’s likely to be blamed?
It really doesn’t matter whether there’s a witness to the crime or not. If a crime occurs in one of the villages in the game, it makes sense that the player character is going to be the chief suspect.
Hmm but still if i was able to kill a man and the only witness is someone of similar or lower rank then me i should be able to accuse him of lying and ask the judge to let me have a trail by combat. Also this should be easier if there was no witnesses.
You’re assuming that you’re even in a position where you would face a judge to begin with. A local lynch mob probably wouldn’t be quite that accommodating.
yep. lots of weird fantasies. you’re a blacksmith, not a magistrate. if you go crazy, you’re just another crazy peasant. lord probably don’t want to waste time and money on you, they would just let the mob hang you for being possessed by the devil.
Best bet would be living in a town, usually an actual learned judge or member of the clergy who knows his canonical law would act as judge and not the local baron.
Good point but there might be a better scape goat than the player around still if the settlement is large enough. I agree that they don’t have to see the player doing the actual killing but they still have to see him around the village around the time of the murder. Also I get that Judges wouldn’t care automatically about doing a proper trial but what if you flee to them from the mob, it would probably still look very bad I agree. The thing is if you manage to get away from the mob then they should probably return to there daily to day life at some point but they would still want you to die and probably notify people of the area. There wouldn’t be a mob in the next town but the guards should imprison you. And what if you do manage to kill the mob at some point eventually that shouldn’t solve the problem and clear your name. Again I am not saying a trial by ordeal is definitely worth implementing but in some scenarios it could be a more interesting game mechanic than imprisonment or fines in previous games. There could still be a lynch mob waiting for you after the trail.
Any sources on that? I think it’s the other way round but maybe that depends on the actual size of the town or city. I don’t know if the town in the game is big enough to justify a learned judge for example. If you have some hard facts feel free to prove me wrong, it actually interests me a lot.
Even small cities in Bohemia did have an office of vogt also voigt or fauth in german, rychtář, šoltys or fojt in czech. Latin documents often call this person iudex. His rights and duties varied in time and location (i.e. they depended on the foundation type of the settlement). But mainly his duties were to maintain order, arrest criminals, protect citizens, collect fines and carry out verdicts in minor disputes.
Even today you can easily see that vogt was an important office. Many local places in contemporary bohemia are still referred to as “Rychta” or “Na rychtě” (also Rychtář is pretty common czech surname). Rychta, Vogt’s house represented a certain center of financial power (in the smaller cities Vogts often administred treasury) and judicial power. You can easily see that apart from church this was the most important building in town. And the fact that Vogts often used Rychta (which was the largest indoor space apart form church in many smaller towns) as a place to do innkeeping most definitely helped the importance of this building.
It’s what my studybooks says and what the situation was back in those days.
Cities with city rights usually broke away from the feudal system and had rich civilians preforming civil duties. One of the reasons they trained a urban militia was because they no longer received that much protection under feudalism.
Let’s say you had a dispute over a contract or other civil law issue in the HRE. While Roman law was positive law all over the HRE it was not primary law. Instead custom law (of a region like Westphalia) was ranked above Roman while city law of a city such as Cologne was above custom law of the region it was in. So if you had a said legal dispute in Cologne the civil magistrates and a non feudal judicial system would take a look at it. Provided you had some money you could get a lawyer who studied at a university and a (hopefully impartial) learned judge. Now lets say you had an issue a few miles outside of the city boundaries and you might be tried according to the custom law of Westphalia which was at the time ruled by either a duke or bishop. In the more rural parts you usually didn’t have university educated folks so there would be a sheriff, Reeve, Bailiff, Vogt etc. dealing with legal disputes. Of course legal disputes in rural parts of the country were generally somewhat easier and facts could usually be established easier since you had tight knit communities in villages.
You are so rude. Like i said i am of similiar or higher rank. When there is only one wittness its my word against his. People wouldnt automatically assume i did it hell i coupd probbly blame the town drunk or one of the paupers.
@Dushin mentioned Magdeburg law as a reference. Actually tha law situation in 15th century HRE or central europe was much more complicated. In Bohemia only there was Magdeburg law prominently in north and north-east with Leitmeritz (Litoměřice) later established as a court of appeal for Magdeburg law. Then there was almost completely adapted Nürnberg law by city of Eger (Cheb). Also there was a huge influence of south germany law practiced in Austria and Bavaria. South german law sprouted several branches in Bohemia notably Brunn law (Brno), Iglau law (Jihlava) and Olmitz law (Olomouc).
Yeah I stated that as an example for the general principle. The truth is that the HRE was barely an empire at all and more a union of 100 or so petty kingdoms that spoke the same language and had some shared customs.
i know this is old but i think that stealing getting cuaght then challenge them then save then die then load then win and BOOM your ritch but if you could say convince a noble or knight to hate and insult another knight noble then they challenge and one dies then you could try and take their spot
