Machete
Engaged Member
- Apr 7, 2020
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Not much of an expert of how middle ages worked around the world (pretty much any civilization has a classic era and a middle age era) but european middle age was a lot less dark and barbaric than historians from the 18th and 19th century wanted us to believe.In the less civilised Middle Ages, punishments were harsher to act as a deterrent.
For once, murder wasn't really a crime through european middle age. Sure it was an highly undesired event authorities tried to prevent, but you weren't like jailed or hang for murder, usually. It was supposed to be a personal matter. If you killed someone his/her relatives received the right to avenge his/her death killing you. But since rarely a family or a circle accepted that killing one of the for revenge just made things even, this approach usually degenerated in a chain of murder that could last decades. That's how the word "Feud" came to be (which has nothing to do with the feudalism instituition, by the way).
Still medieval authorities weren't happy at all to have feud around at all. So they pushed a lot for the practice of the 'widrigild', the gold price. Basically if you killed someone you could go to the family of the victim and offer to settle the score by paying a compensation that was good enough to prove the value of the murdered person and the prestige of the family.
So, no creative corporal punishments here. It was more of a thing of classic eras.
Thieves though could get marked or mutilated (like the cut of a ear) if the were arrested multiple times. Stealing was a big deal back then.