Why were punishments in medieval Europe so harsh?

Answer 1

Criminal Law

Criminals in medieval England had no right to legal advice or assistance. Usually they were held in prisons for weeks or months before being tried. Until trial they would not have know the evidence against them, and they would not have been prepared. If convicted of a serious crime the usual punishment was death. Courts were not impartial. Judges appear to have acted more as prosecutors than as imartial umpires betwee the parties.

Despite this, relatively few people accused of a serious crime were in fact hanged. Most were aquitted at trial. Of those convicted some received pardons, either on the recommendation of the judge (for example where the defendant was insane), or through pursuading an official of the King to obtain a pardon, usually at substantial cost. Clergy, and later anyone who could read, could escape execution through "benefit of clergy".

Civil Law

litigants in civil courts were routinely "amerced" (fined) if they lots, in addition to the costs of bringing or defending a law suit. Medieval proceedure was horribly complicated and even where one had a clear case, it could take years for the matter to come to be settled. Early in the period, trial was more often by superstitious proof than by evidence - trial by ordeal or battle was a real possiblity, especially in disputes over land. Even in the later middle ages defendants could sometimes escape defeat by "wager of law" - which simply involved finding the right number of other people to support you in court, whether they were witnesses or not. It was routine for people to pay others to help them wage law in the Royal Courts.

Answer 2

1st Answer:

Most life in the Middle Ages was "on the edge"; on the edge of starvation, on the edge of freezing, on the edge of dying of disease. There wasn't a lot of food to spare.

If you stole something, you may as well have killed him because it would be difficult to continue life without it. Horse-stealing was especially bad, because if you stole a horse, you were probably stealing a man's livelihood, his work, and his transportation all at once.

Additionally, there were few prisons, no jails, and no way to house or feed a person who wasn't earning his own keep. And only the King had men to spare to keep someone like that alive and imprisoned.

So most crimes were capital crimes, punishable by death.

2nd Answer:

During the Middle Ages, there were more countries in Europe than there are today, each with its own legal codes, and every king had the opportunity to have some impact on laws, so there was a lot of variation. Having read a number of legal codes, I cannot say I would categorized them all as harsh by the standards of history in general.

Theft was not usually treated as a capital crime. In fact, my impression is that it was not usually punished by corporal punishment, but with a fine. It was punished by repayment of a multiple of the value of the thing stolen. In some legal systems, nearly all crimes were punishable with a fine, even including murder, though this really only common in the Early Middle Ages. A Welsh legal code prescribes exile for theft, and death if the exile return; but if the thing stolen was food, and if the person accused could show he had unsuccessfully begged for food at nine houses in each of three settlements, then he would not be punished.

Punishment for crimes was often intended to compensate the victims. Under Salic Law, for example, fines were levied, and one third part of the fine was used to cover court costs, with the remainder going to the victim or the victim's family. Crimes ranged from murder to unprovable insults.

Prison was uncommon unless the authorities were worried that the person or the person's relatives posed a threat to the king. There was a form of imprisonment that required a person to stay within the confines of a particular town or neighborhood.

Under some legal systems, a person would be confined to stocks for a period, during which people were allowed to insult or abuse him in any way they saw fit, short of doing bodily harm. The time in the stocks was continued over a period of a year, with a certain number of hours in each season, regardless of weather. I do not recall ever reading whether a particular day was prescribed in advance or the person being punished could choose a day he though might be comfortable.

There were contests, both to prove guilt and to allow a victim to inflict punishment if he could. While these were done in some places during the Middle Ages, there were also legal codes that clearly said they were unfair and not to be used.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about medieval justice, and perhaps it is nowhere so misunderstood as in the handling of witches. The laws of the Carolingian Empire and the Kingdom of Lombardy both made it clear that belief in witchcraft was superstition and not legally permitted. That being the case, both legal systems regarded killing an accused witch as murder. Since both legal systems made murder a capital crime, in both these legal systems burning a witch was punishable by death.

Answer 3

There have always been people of authority who were mean or vengeful and gave out harsh punishments, and the Middle Ages were no exception.

You should understand, however, that not all legal codes or rulers of the Middle Ages were harsh, and punishments were very often intended to correct wrongs people committed, rather than make them suffer. For example, a thief was often made to repay the value of the thing stolen three times over, to replace it and make up amends to the victim. Another example is that in some countries, when a rapist was caught, he was made to pay a dowry for his victim, sufficient to attract a husband for her, or, if she was married, a similar amount to satisfy the sense of honor of both her and her family.

In Western Europe of the Early Middle Ages, almost all crimes were punishable by fine. Prisons were nearly unknown.

Torture was banned by the Church for most of the Middle Ages, though it did happen, and the Church tended to allow it more and more in the Late Middle Ages.

There was also sanctuary. A person could take refuge in a church or monastery if he was trying to escape trial or punishment. Rulers usually respected this. There was even a case of a woman who was found trying to poison a king of France, but escaped to a convent and was allowed to live out her life there.

Some rulers were brutal, but not all. I think they were actually the exception.

Answer 4

That was just the societal norm of things in those days. To them it would be strange to put someone in jail for their entire lives with plenty of food and living space. They would see us as to nice and caring to someone who has broken the law.

In those times the world was much harsher then our modern day. Yes, but crime was most likely much higher and much more common, especially in times of national crisis as wars and struggles for power were a lot more common nowadays countries are more internally occupied whereas in medieval europe it is very evident that many nations that are friends now were at war with one another at these times.