Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany

Courts and Adjudicatory Practices in Frankfurt am Main, 1562–1696

Maria R. Boes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138379756
• eBook ISBN: 9781317157984
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

Frankfurt am Main, in common with other imperial German cities, enjoyed a large degree of legal autonomy during the early modern period, and produced a unique and rich body of criminal archives. In particular, Frankfurt's Strafenbuch, which records all criminal sentences between 1562 and 1696, provides a fascinating insight into contemporary penal trends. Drawing on this and other rich resources, Dr. Boes reveals shifting and fluid attitudes towards crime and punishment and how these were conditioned by issues of gender, class, and social standing within the city's establishment. She attributes a significant role in this process to the steady proliferation of municipal advocates, jurists trained in Roman Law, who wielded growing legal and penal prerogatives. Over the course of the book, it is demonstrated how the courts took an increasingly hard line with select groups of people accused of criminal behavior, and the open manner with which advocates exercised cultural, religious, racial, gender, and sexual-orientation repressions. Parallel with this, however, is identified a trend of marked leniency towards soldiers who enjoyed an increasingly privileged place within the judicial system. In light of this discrepancy between the treatment of civilians and soldiers, the advocates' actions highlight the emergence and spread of a distinct military judicial culture and Frankfurt's city council's contribution to the quasi-militarization of a civilian court. By highlighting the polarized and changing ways the courts dealt with civilian and military criminals, a fuller picture is presented not just of Frankfurt's sentencing and penal practices, but of broader attitudes within early modern Germany to issues of social position and cultural identity.

PART I The City's Profile

Chapter 1 Socio-Economic and Religious Background

DOI: 10.4324/9781315574783-1

Governmental Structure

Frankfurt am Main is located on the navigable Main River, approximately halfway between the cities of Hamburg in the north and Munich in the south of what then constituted the Holy Roman Empire. This central geographical location at the crossroads of various trade routes played a key factor in Frankfurt’s successful economic and political developments, as evidenced by two annual trade fairs of international reputation and its status as a free imperial city as well as the seat of imperial elections and coronations.

The mental dexterity of its inhabitants also played a decisive role in the acquisition of such far-reaching achievements. For years, perceptive locals pursued and successfully convinced various emperors either by purchase or astute political maneuvering to grant Frankfurt extensive self-rule rights as well as charters for its two annual fairs.¹ Furthermore, Frankfurt was successful in expanding its judicial authority. A 1387 imperial privilege entitled the city to adjudicate in both civil and criminal matters.² Frankfurt’s municipal jurisdiction covered any offender, regardless of social status and regardless of where the crime had been committed. It also extended over former ecclesiastical prerogatives as the local court of the Catholic Church, the Sendegericht, had been dissolved in 1370.³ Imperial and ecclesiastical authority was thus integrated into local government. Political prestige came when, with the inception of the “Golden Bull” of 1356, one of the most influential imperial documents for the Holy Roman Empire, Frankfurt am Main became the seat of imperial elections, a symbolic glamour heightened 200 years later when the city also became the site of imperial coronations.

¹ Michael Rothmann, Die Frankfurter Messen im Mittelalter, Frankfurter historische Abhandlungen, vol. 40 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998); Konrad Bund, “Frankfurt am Main im Spätmittelalter, 1311–1519,” in Frankfurt am Main: Die Geschichte der Stadt in neun Beiträgen, Frankfurter Historische Kommission (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1991), pp. 54–65; Friedrich Bothe, Geschichte der Stadt Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt am Main, 1913) p. 23; Ludwig Heinrich Euler, “Rechtsgeschichte der Stadt Frankfurt am Main,” in Festschrift für den 10. Juristentag in Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt am Main, 1872), p. 6. ² Johann Anton Moritz, Versuch einer Einleitung in die Stadtverfassung der Reichsstadt Frankfurt am Main (2 vols, Frankfurt am Main: Andräische Buchhandlung, 1786), vol. 2, p. 29; Bothe, Geschichte, p. 226. ³ Bothe, Geschichte, p. 253; Georg Ludwig Kriegk, Frankfurter Bürgerzwiste und Zustände im Mittelalter (Frankfurt am Main: J.D. Sauerländer’s Verlag, 1862), p. 420; Johann, G.Ch. Thomas, Der Oberhof zu Frankfurt am Main und das Fränkische Recht (Frankfurt am Main: Jäger’sche Buch- und Papier-Landkarten-Handlung, 1841), p. 207; Euler, “Rechtsgeschichte,” p. 27.

With the acquisition of such far-reaching responsibilities, the administration of the city took more concrete forms, but not without serious challenges from within the city itself. While a city council stood at the apex of the local government consisting of three benches presided over by two mayors, the social composition or membership of the city council became a bone of contention. It became a matter of elite, local patricians versus a more general distribution of power and representation. The question of who or which group of the local citizenry should sit on each of these benches became of prime importance, especially considering the judicial powers invested in each branch: the first bench represented the local civil court, while all three benches were in charge of criminal matters, thus constituting the local criminal court.⁴

⁴ Johann Georg Rössing, Versuch einer kurzen historischen Darstellung der allmählichen Entwicklung der heutigen Gerichtsverfassung der Stadt Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt am Main: J.E.B. Mohr, 1810), p. 39.

The offices of city councilors and mayors were elective ones; however, the electoral process to these offices became more and more restricted. Frankfurt’s patricians were able to abrogate and keep the right to proper electoral procedures by co-opting their own members into the first two benches of the city council.⁵ The guilds, despite a revolt, had to be content with the third.⁶ In addition, since the pool for the mayoral positions was restricted to city councilors only, patricians easily won these positions as well. Throughout the entire sixteenth and seventeenth centuries no guild member ever reached the position of local mayor and no guild member ever entered the upper bench, the bench composing the civil court.⁷

⁵ Kriegk, Frankfurter Bürgerzwiste, pp. 22–80, 354–95. ⁶ Bothe, Geschichte, p. 124. ⁷ Ibid., p. 116.

The guilds were confronted with an additional problem in that city councilors did not receive any pay for their services.⁸ This adverse monetary ruling did not seem to have had a major impact considering the continuity of guild members on the third bench.⁹ First, the guild members sent to the city council were well off themselves and second, the social status and prestige associated with being a city councilor made the work very attractive, in particular since not every guild had the right to send representatives to the city council.¹⁰ Weavers, butchers, bakers, shoemakers and blacksmiths could send two representatives each and gardeners, fishermen, furriers and tanners only one each, leaving the majority of approximately 30 remaining guilds without such privileges.¹¹

⁸ Ibid., p. 401. ⁹ Matthias Meyn, Die Reichsstadt Frankfurt vor dem Bürgeraufstand von 1612 bis 1614: Struktur und Krise. Studien zur Frankfurter Geschichte, Heft 15 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Waldemar Kramer, 1980), p. 178. ¹⁰ Ibid., p. 180. ¹¹ Karl Bücher, Die Bevölkerung von Frankfurt am Main im XIV und XV Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: H. Laupp, 1886), p. 87.

Frankfurt’s city council thus did not represent a cross-section of the local population, but was—and would remain, at least during the time frame of this study—in the hands of the local patrician elite. The authority of the oligarchic patricians was not seriously endangered by the presence of artisans on the council.¹² On the contrary, they were able to solidify their power over the years, especially the two most prominent among them: the Alten-Limpurg and to a lesser degree the Frauenstein.

¹² Meyn, Reichsstadt, p. 180.

And up to a certain time period they did so by accommodating newcomers into their ranks, provided they had the necessary credentials such as money or a law degree. While the Frauenstein continued with a relative open policy, the Alten-Limpurg started to close ranks in 1584. Thereafter, no applicant was admitted whose parents, even grandparents, were descendants of artisans or small merchants.¹³ Obviously, this process also led to endogamous intermarriages.¹⁴

¹³ Wolfgang Klötzer, “Keine liebere Stadt als Frankfurt” Kleine Schriften zur Frankfurter Kulturgeschichte II, Studien zur Frankfurter Geschichte, 45, im Auftrag des Frankfurter Vereins für Geschichte und Landeskunde in Verbindung mit der Frankfurter Historischen Kommission herausgegeben von Dieter Rebentisch (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Waldemar Kramer, 2000), pp. 219, 215; Meyn, Reichsstadt, p. 219. ¹⁴ Klötzer, Keine liebere, p. 251; Barbara Dölemeyer, Frankfurter Juristen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, in Ius Commune, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Sonderheft 60 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann 1993), p. XXIII; for an excellent discussion see Hermann Mitgau’s article, “Geschlossene Heiratskreise Sozialer Inzucht,” in Helmut Rössler, ed., Deutsches Patriziat, 1430–1740 (Limburg/Lahn: E.A. Starke, 1968), pp. 1–25.

As local patricians thus became an increasingly exclusive circle it is tempting to argue that they held unobstructed sway over Frankfurt’s population. But this was not the case. The population at large shared implicitly and explicitly in the power structure, given the insular character and isolation of a walled city and the absence of any cohesive police or institutionalized military force. Frankfurt’s patrician city councilors could not afford to impose their mandates over the population at will, as is clearly demonstrated by various socio-religious and economic developments.

Socio-Religious Developments

Cooperation among the city dwellers was necessary for survival and, toward that end, intramural audible and visible signals were introduced. It was in particular the pervasive sound of bells, which served as signals reaching everyone in town within a short amount of time. While originally the sound of bells emanated from church towers with a primarily religious message, Frankfurt acquired the right to use these bells for municipal purposes, starting by the mid-fourteenth century, such as the Gemperlein bell warning of possible impending dangers, soon to be supplanted by municipal bells mounted on the city hall and various city gates.¹⁵ Two bells warned locals of impending danger, the guard bell and the fire bell. Other bells regulated monthly, weekly even daily local activities. The Stadtglocke, the municipal bell which was called “die Sturm,” the tempest, rang to indicate when the city council would hold its meetings.¹⁶ The Marktglocke, market bell signaled the opening and closing of the market; the Zinsglocke, the interest bell, warned delayed taxpayers to pay up; and the Kehrglocke, the cleaning bell, urged residents to clean the streets. The sound of bells even coordinated daily work and leisure times: such as the Werkglocke, the work bell, which indicated the beginning and end of the work period as well as the lunch break, and the Schmiedeglocke, smith bell, warned to limit noise-producing artisans, while the wine and beer bells signaled the closing of drinking hours in taverns.¹⁷ Bells thus reminded locals of their duties and social obligations, such as to pay their taxes.¹⁸ Their sounds filled the city with regulatory symbolic rhythms, an indispensible informative tool in a predominantly oral society.

¹⁵ Isidor Kracauer, “Das Militärwesen der Reichsstadt Frankfurt a.M. im XVIII Jahrhundert,” in Archiv für Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst, 3 Folge, Bd. 12 (Frankfurt am Main, 1920), pp. 1–80, p. 3; Igor Jenzen, ed., Urzeiten: Die Geschichte der Uhr und ihres Gebrauchs (Frankfurt am Main: Jonas Verlag für Kunst und Literatur, 1989), p. 51. ¹⁶ Jenzen, Urzeiten, p. 51. ¹⁷ Ibid., p. 52. ¹⁸ Werner Moritz, Die bürgerlichen Fürsorgeanstalten der Reichsstadt Frankfurt am Main im späten Mittelalter. Studien zur Frankfurter Geschichte, vol. 14 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Waldemar Kramer, 1981), p. 103.

But bells were not the only sounds regulating daily living. Intramural close living conditions also encouraged constant and speedy communication via street talk or window-to-window exchanges among the various inhabitants. Conversational shouting was common practice and gossip flourished, serving as the weapon of choice for clandestine accusations and mutual supervision purposes.

Such verbal exploits even encouraged locals from circumventing laws, as clearly evidenced in the case of the poor and begging. Frankfurt had replaced the traditional poor relief handled through the agency of the Catholic Church, with its own municipal and secular administration. This ended not only the indiscriminate handing out of alms but also lowered the social status of the poor, whom the Catholics accorded a high esteem most vividly exemplified by mendicant orders.¹⁹ In 1438 Frankfurt’s city council initiated its first municipal poor relief endeavor, which already in 1476 resulted in sidelining the indiscriminate approach to poor relief by introducing gradations among the impoverished, splitting them into resident and non-resident with the objective of granting relief only to locals.²⁰

¹⁹ Ibid. ²⁰ Ibid.

Frankfurt was no exception in...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Epigraph
• PART I: THE CITY'S PROFILE
• PART II: CRIMINAL DETECTION METHODS
• PART III: CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS/RACIAL IMPEDIMENTS
• PART IV: GENDER ISSUES
• PART V: SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
• PART VI: MILITARY ASCENDANCY
• PART VII: DESPERATE ACTS
• Index