Scott K. Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300126853
- eISBN:
- 9780300151695
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300126853.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter begins by presenting as an example a climactic confrontation between a wealthy peasant and newly chosen alcalde, Pedro Crespo, and the commander of an army billeted in Zalamea, Don Lope ...
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This chapter begins by presenting as an example a climactic confrontation between a wealthy peasant and newly chosen alcalde, Pedro Crespo, and the commander of an army billeted in Zalamea, Don Lope de Figueroa, in Calderon's El alcalde de Zalamea. In the said confrontation, Crespo asserts unambiguously that men must avenge offenses to their honor without the help of legal authorities, even if doing so breaks the law. Resorting to the law is tantamount to doing nothing, and Crespo further believes that it has no power to restore his good name; vengeance can come only through his own actions. On the other hand, Don Lope holds the contrary belief, which corresponds with the rule of law, that private vengeance is impermissible. This juxtaposition of private revenge and the law also appears in other plays, the ambiguous endings of which, critics have struggled to interpret. Historians have also been of little help since they traditionally have seen early modern criminal law in Spain as a tool of state repression.Less
This chapter begins by presenting as an example a climactic confrontation between a wealthy peasant and newly chosen alcalde, Pedro Crespo, and the commander of an army billeted in Zalamea, Don Lope de Figueroa, in Calderon's El alcalde de Zalamea. In the said confrontation, Crespo asserts unambiguously that men must avenge offenses to their honor without the help of legal authorities, even if doing so breaks the law. Resorting to the law is tantamount to doing nothing, and Crespo further believes that it has no power to restore his good name; vengeance can come only through his own actions. On the other hand, Don Lope holds the contrary belief, which corresponds with the rule of law, that private vengeance is impermissible. This juxtaposition of private revenge and the law also appears in other plays, the ambiguous endings of which, critics have struggled to interpret. Historians have also been of little help since they traditionally have seen early modern criminal law in Spain as a tool of state repression.
Mireille Hildebrandt
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199673612
- eISBN:
- 9780191751745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673612.003.0012
- Subject:
- Law, Criminal Law and Criminology, Legal History
This chapter is dedicated to Radbruch’s seminal text on “The Origin of Criminal Law in the Class of Serfs.” It contains a number of counter intuitive insights on the relationship between public ...
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This chapter is dedicated to Radbruch’s seminal text on “The Origin of Criminal Law in the Class of Serfs.” It contains a number of counter intuitive insights on the relationship between public punishment and private revenge, derived from the domains of legal history and anthropological research in non-state societies. Radbruch’s aim was not to provide a historiography of punitive interventions in tribal Germanic society, but to remind his readers of the constitutive importance of sovereignty for the emergence of criminal law. This relates to Radbruch’s concern for legal certainty, and explains his inquiries into the continuity and discontinuities between the pater familias of the Germanic clan and the institution of the sovereign. My own investigations could similarly be understood as a kind of “historical jurisprudence,” highlighting the significance of the mutation that occurred when punitive interventions between equals (private revenge) were prohibited and became themselves punishable as criminal offences.Less
This chapter is dedicated to Radbruch’s seminal text on “The Origin of Criminal Law in the Class of Serfs.” It contains a number of counter intuitive insights on the relationship between public punishment and private revenge, derived from the domains of legal history and anthropological research in non-state societies. Radbruch’s aim was not to provide a historiography of punitive interventions in tribal Germanic society, but to remind his readers of the constitutive importance of sovereignty for the emergence of criminal law. This relates to Radbruch’s concern for legal certainty, and explains his inquiries into the continuity and discontinuities between the pater familias of the Germanic clan and the institution of the sovereign. My own investigations could similarly be understood as a kind of “historical jurisprudence,” highlighting the significance of the mutation that occurred when punitive interventions between equals (private revenge) were prohibited and became themselves punishable as criminal offences.
