| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Existence of courts: "Organizationof the Courts: The courts were organized as state insti- tutions. Among the Western Mongols there were two courts of justice, the Khoton and the High Court. Two courts also evidently existed among the Northern Mongols, but among them the courts were more closely connected with the Khoshun and Aimak administration. Definite, although not detailed, rules of procedure existed. The number of cases in which Mongols were permitted to take the law into their own hands was considerably diminished."
[1]
However, may not have existed before establishment of legal codes starting in late 16th century. Late 16th century: “Tümen Jasaghtu Khan tried to unify the country administratively and so included in his government not only Abtai, Altan and Khutughtai Sechen, but also other influential nobles from all the tümens and from the Oirat regions. He compiled a new code that was supposed to be based on Chinggis Khan’s Great Ya ̄sa ̄ or Jasaq (see Volume IV, Part One). Subsequently, Altan Khan, Abtai Khan and, most likely, several others followed his example and adopted their own laws and codes in their respective tümens. But only some of these have been preserved, whether wholly or partially. They were written in the old Mongol script, which had been borrowed from the Uighur, and adopted under Chinggis Khan as the official script of the Mongols. » [2] "Records of Law: The basic records of the law of this period were the Ancient Tsaadjin Bichik, the Mongol-Oirat Regulations of 1640, the Great Code of the Seven Khoshuns, and the Khalkha-Djirom of 1709. Of these records, the Mongot-Oirat Regulations of 1640 were the most important, being, for a time, the effective code in both Northern and Western Mongolia (Khalkha and Djungaria) After the disintegration of the alliance of the "Forty and Four," this code remained effective in Djungaria until the promulgation of the Chinese Code or Regulations of 1789 and among the Rusian Kalmucks until 1917 In Northern Mongolia the Mongol-Oirat Regulations of 1640 were replaced by the Great Code of the Seven Hoshuns and later by the Khalkha-Djirom, which also retained its effectiveness until 1789. The Khalkha-Djirom also continued to function among the herdsmen Shabinars of the Urga Gegen until superseded in 1925." [3] [1]: (Riasananovsky 1948: 172) Riasanovsky, V. A. 1948. Mongol Law—A Concise Historical Survey. Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 166: 160-178. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9JCNB66X/library [2]: (Ishjamts 2003, 214) [3]: (Riasananovsky 1948: 170) Riasanovsky, V. A. 1948. Mongol Law—A Concise Historical Survey. Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 166: 160-178. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9JCNB66X/library |
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Existence of courts: "Organizationof the Courts: The courts were organized as state insti- tutions. Among the Western Mongols there were two courts of justice, the Khoton and the High Court. Two courts also evidently existed among the Northern Mongols, but among them the courts were more closely connected with the Khoshun and Aimak administration. Definite, although not detailed, rules of procedure existed. The number of cases in which Mongols were permitted to take the law into their own hands was considerably diminished."
[1]
However, may not have existed before establishment of legal codes starting in late 16th century. Late 16th century: “Tümen Jasaghtu Khan tried to unify the country administratively and so included in his government not only Abtai, Altan and Khutughtai Sechen, but also other influential nobles from all the tümens and from the Oirat regions. He compiled a new code that was supposed to be based on Chinggis Khan’s Great Ya ̄sa ̄ or Jasaq (see Volume IV, Part One). Subsequently, Altan Khan, Abtai Khan and, most likely, several others followed his example and adopted their own laws and codes in their respective tümens. But only some of these have been preserved, whether wholly or partially. They were written in the old Mongol script, which had been borrowed from the Uighur, and adopted under Chinggis Khan as the official script of the Mongols. » [2] "Records of Law: The basic records of the law of this period were the Ancient Tsaadjin Bichik, the Mongol-Oirat Regulations of 1640, the Great Code of the Seven Khoshuns, and the Khalkha-Djirom of 1709. Of these records, the Mongot-Oirat Regulations of 1640 were the most important, being, for a time, the effective code in both Northern and Western Mongolia (Khalkha and Djungaria) After the disintegration of the alliance of the "Forty and Four," this code remained effective in Djungaria until the promulgation of the Chinese Code or Regulations of 1789 and among the Rusian Kalmucks until 1917 In Northern Mongolia the Mongol-Oirat Regulations of 1640 were replaced by the Great Code of the Seven Hoshuns and later by the Khalkha-Djirom, which also retained its effectiveness until 1789. The Khalkha-Djirom also continued to function among the herdsmen Shabinars of the Urga Gegen until superseded in 1925." [3] [1]: (Riasananovsky 1948: 172) Riasanovsky, V. A. 1948. Mongol Law—A Concise Historical Survey. Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 166: 160-178. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9JCNB66X/library [2]: (Ishjamts 2003, 214) [3]: (Riasananovsky 1948: 170) Riasanovsky, V. A. 1948. Mongol Law—A Concise Historical Survey. Wash. L. Rev. & St. B.J. 166: 160-178. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9JCNB66X/library |
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Clan elders fulfilled judicial, but also ceremonial and other duties: ’The oldest kinsman in the clan, or the [unknown]iye-[unknown]usa , is always heaped with honors, if he is both rich and has never been put on trial. To him pertains the jurisdiction in trifling quarrels between kinsfolk. The following ceremonies serve to recall the religious functions that he (Ysekh) formerly exercised a. At the time of the spring festival, which bears a strictly clan character, they bring to him, first of all, a large wooden vessel ( Choron ) containing kumiss; he pronounces a prayer of thanks to the gods and then pours the kumiss upon the fire. b. At the time of the arrival of the betrothed at the bridegroom’s yurt, they take from the sleigh of the betrothed, and place upon a table in front of the fire place the boiled head of a horse, whose eyes are covered with butter, to whose ears are attached intestines filled with horse’s blood, and a wooden cup filled with butter. After this the betrothed enters the yurt, and stands, having first untied her girdle, on the right side of the komelok [RCH: i. e., the fireplace] where she is met by the oldest kinsman, whose place is sometimes taken nowadays by the most honored guest, who, kneeling, throws into the fire pieces of meat, blood and butter, and blesses the bride. For the completion of this ceremony, whose obvious object is to unite the bride with the bridegroom’s home, the oldest kinsman secures for his use the head, blood and butter brought into the yurt, and in addition the sum of one ruble.’
[1]
Clans also handled criminal cases and litigation in assemblies of elders: ’I shall end this survey of Yakut clan institutions and their self-government by a note about Yakut legal procedure. Strictly speaking the Yakut court is the assembly: the clan, nasleg, or ulus assembly, depending on the circumstances. These courts are under each other’s jurisdiction as courts of appeal. The Yakut enjoy waging law suits against each other and witnessing court proceedings. More important matters are always handed over to the assembly. At the assembly the wealthy people usually put in their comments, which areheard attentively, and although the final judgement is pronounced by the chairman of the assembly, he usually simply transmits a condensed form of the general opinion. The ligitants stand before the presiding clansmen with their heads bare, and, frequently nodding their heads and, while making the most important points, making deep bows from the waist, each in turn expound their case. Witnesses are called forth and interrogated on the spot, while unruly witnesses are brought by policemen. The judges always have to sit. In some localities it is customary for the judges to wear caps on their head.’
[2]
Criminal cases were transferred to Russian courts only after 1889: ’Nevertheless until very r ecently and even criminal cases such as beatings, personal injury, and thefts, even for a considerable amount, as long as a house was not broken into, were judged by the clan administration. Only from the year 1889, when an order came out to proceed against the trible authorities if they did not communicate such matters, have thefts begun to be referred to the Russian courts and judged according to Russian laws. For theft the Yakut usually punished wealthy people by a fine which was two or three times the value of the stolen article, depending on the circumstances. For beatings and personal injuries they sentenced the guilty party to support the injured party during his disablement or to pay him a lump sum. Now the guilty are put in prison, and to the great horror of their neighbors they usually leave out and out scoundrels. Such crimes as the violation of women, the breaking of agreements, fraud, and forgery were apparently unknown to the Yakut and went unpunished. But the violation of the wedding agreement was provided for by the kalym. At the present time most of the cases and statements of claim which come before the clan administrations concern the violation of boundary lines and various disputed lands.’
[3]
Sieroszewski’s material on punishment seems to refer to Yakut assemblies rather than Russian courts: ’In 1867, according to official data, 1870 cases were judged in the upravas in the vicinity of Yakutsk: out of the total, 1855 concerned land disputes; in the Vilyuysk Okrug, out of 3786 cases, more than half had to do with land. Besides levying fines the Yakut also punish a guilty party by reprimanding him publicly, before the assembly, by sending him on some job, or putting him into solitary confinement. The latter is apparently a Russian innovation. Punishment with birch-rods was quite unknown to the Yakut in the past. Even now they have recourse to this very rarely and with great distaste. In the north they did not even know what this was like, and once, in the Kolymsk Ulus, when the assembly did not known what to do with one of its disobedient members and decided, on the advice of some Yakut who had come from the south, to flog him, they turned to me with questions: where should we beat him?, and do we have to lay him down and undress him or is that not permitted? (Kolymsk Ulus, Undzha, 1883). Usually the influence of the commune is quite sufficient to exert necessary compulsion. In the south, where the ties of the commune have weakened, we find disobedient people whose cattle are taken away as a punishment, or who are forced to obey. Many decisions of the clan assemblies astonished me by their strangeness, but once I looked closer into their life and made thorough inquiries into their motives I always found at the bottom a deep respect for the individual and a striving toward equality. Naturally I say nothing about those decisions which are demonstrably incorrect, and not in accord with custom and the conscience of the people, but which they have been forced to make because of the economic pressure of unscrupulous rich people or because of administrative arbitrariness.’
[4]
Clerical courts occasionally prosecuted polygamy prior to that date: ’Such polygamy, which is tolerated for the above reasons, and which has existed since ancient times and does not do any harm, had not become bad in the judgement of the Yakut, and no regulations for the abolition of this custom have been set up by the Yakut. However, since the Yakut adopted the Christian faith, and as they have become enlightened by strict surveillance and sometimes by indulgent reprimands from the eparchial priests, it has been gradually dying out, but nevertheless denunciations on this subject are made concerning people who have lawfully wedded wives but keep the others, and people who had several wives before conversion and married one of them in church without leaving the others, who were left at home with their children; in the case of such a denunciation the local authorities, on the grounds of the repugnance of the Christian religion for this custom, pressed formal charges, and the guilty parties were handed over to the clerical court as fornicators, and the cases were decided according to general state laws, which constituted and still constitute and extreme burden for the Yakut.’
[5]
[1]: Kharuzin, Aleksai Nikolaevich 1898. “Juridicial Customs Of The Yakut”, 40p [2]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 797 [3]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 798 [4]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 799 [5]: Samokvasov, D. I. A. 1876. “Collection Of Customary Law Of The Siberian Natives”, 14 |
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The judicial disputes presided over by village headmen do not constitute courts in the conventional sense of the term: ’The responsibility of the headman is to look after the affairs of his anak-biak , or followers, and, as a matter of course, he is expected to know every aspect of customary adat . If a dispute is referred to the headman, he will attempt to settle it with the help of the Tuai Umai or Tuai Burong (the farm leader or augury expert, respectively), and other village members who are well versed in customary adat . The Tuai Burong is an expert in various kinds of augury as well as being well versed in the genealogies and history of his community.’
[1]
But the Brooke administration established courts on district/polity level: ’By 1900, Brooke control of Sarawak was fairly well established. The government was gradually extending its efforts into such fields as agricultural research. As it established a system of courts and law, effort was made, whenever possible, to codify and preserve local customary law ( adat ). From this time on, the mainstream of Iban migration was much less violent, despite cultural ideals, and as we will see, much slower. However, government regulations notwithstanding, the migrations did not cease.’
[2]
Iban communities occasionally made use of the colonial system of courts seeking verdicts in translocal matters: ’The Chinese-Iban relationship was not entirely harmonious. The Chinese sometimes cheated their customers by using rigged scales to weigh jungle produce, but the Ibans retaliated by mixing earth and other trash into the gutta, and later they learned to practice similar tricks with cultivated rubber as well. The early outstation Chinese were often rough and roistering, the Ibans were hot tempered, and communal quarrels inevitably occurred. Ibans sometimes protested in the Simanggang court when rowdy shopkeepers pinched the exposed bosoms of their women. After one such incident the magistrate observed, “More than one complaint has been made by Dayaks of Chinamen behaving thus, and it is disgraceful that a woman cannot walk in the bazaar without being assaulted in an indecent manner by Chinamen.”’
[3]
We have assumed the same provisional date of transition as above.
[1]: Sandin, Benedict, and Clifford Sather 1980. “Iban Adat And Augury”, 3 [2]: Austin, Robert Frederi. 1978. “Iban Migration: Patterns Of Mobility And Employment In The 20Th Century”, 16 [3]: Pringle, Robert Maxwell 1968. “Ibans Of Sarawak Under Brooke Rule, 1841-1941”, 490 |
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“New courts of general jurisdiction under Joseph II operated on the first and second levels of adjudication and appeal and ignored ständisch differences; all citizens became subject to the same criminal code, with local inhabitants having a theoretical right of appeal from manorial courts to the royal courts. Local judges were forced to know the law, since appeals to royal courts were written, not oral. The regional Estates were nearly powerless to resist—they had no army, the great aristocrats had torn loyalties, and the provinces did not trust each other.”
[1]
“The destruction of rural dependency under Alexander Bach in the 1850s, together with the elaboration of a new, powerful system of regional and local administration—but controlled from Vienna— beginning in the early 1850s, reshaped the Austrian civil service in powerful ways that endured well into the twentieth century… A new civil court system of local and regional courts and separated from the civil administration was charged with the uniform implementation of the Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch across a new hierarchy of jurisdictions.
[2]
[1]: (Boyer 2022: 8) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD [2]: (Boyer 2022: 51-52) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD |
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Clan elders fulfilled judicial, but also ceremonial and other duties: ’The oldest kinsman in the clan, or the [unknown]iye-[unknown]usa , is always heaped with honors, if he is both rich and has never been put on trial. To him pertains the jurisdiction in trifling quarrels between kinsfolk. The following ceremonies serve to recall the religious functions that he (Ysekh) formerly exercised a. At the time of the spring festival, which bears a strictly clan character, they bring to him, first of all, a large wooden vessel ( Choron ) containing kumiss; he pronounces a prayer of thanks to the gods and then pours the kumiss upon the fire. b. At the time of the arrival of the betrothed at the bridegroom’s yurt, they take from the sleigh of the betrothed, and place upon a table in front of the fire place the boiled head of a horse, whose eyes are covered with butter, to whose ears are attached intestines filled with horse’s blood, and a wooden cup filled with butter. After this the betrothed enters the yurt, and stands, having first untied her girdle, on the right side of the komelok [RCH: i. e., the fireplace] where she is met by the oldest kinsman, whose place is sometimes taken nowadays by the most honored guest, who, kneeling, throws into the fire pieces of meat, blood and butter, and blesses the bride. For the completion of this ceremony, whose obvious object is to unite the bride with the bridegroom’s home, the oldest kinsman secures for his use the head, blood and butter brought into the yurt, and in addition the sum of one ruble.’
[1]
Clans also handled criminal cases and litigation in assemblies of elders: ’I shall end this survey of Yakut clan institutions and their self-government by a note about Yakut legal procedure. Strictly speaking the Yakut court is the assembly: the clan, nasleg, or ulus assembly, depending on the circumstances. These courts are under each other’s jurisdiction as courts of appeal. The Yakut enjoy waging law suits against each other and witnessing court proceedings. More important matters are always handed over to the assembly. At the assembly the wealthy people usually put in their comments, which areheard attentively, and although the final judgement is pronounced by the chairman of the assembly, he usually simply transmits a condensed form of the general opinion. The ligitants stand before the presiding clansmen with their heads bare, and, frequently nodding their heads and, while making the most important points, making deep bows from the waist, each in turn expound their case. Witnesses are called forth and interrogated on the spot, while unruly witnesses are brought by policemen. The judges always have to sit. In some localities it is customary for the judges to wear caps on their head.’
[2]
Criminal cases were transferred to Russian courts only after 1889: ’Nevertheless until very r ecently and even criminal cases such as beatings, personal injury, and thefts, even for a considerable amount, as long as a house was not broken into, were judged by the clan administration. Only from the year 1889, when an order came out to proceed against the trible authorities if they did not communicate such matters, have thefts begun to be referred to the Russian courts and judged according to Russian laws. For theft the Yakut usually punished wealthy people by a fine which was two or three times the value of the stolen article, depending on the circumstances. For beatings and personal injuries they sentenced the guilty party to support the injured party during his disablement or to pay him a lump sum. Now the guilty are put in prison, and to the great horror of their neighbors they usually leave out and out scoundrels. Such crimes as the violation of women, the breaking of agreements, fraud, and forgery were apparently unknown to the Yakut and went unpunished. But the violation of the wedding agreement was provided for by the kalym. At the present time most of the cases and statements of claim which come before the clan administrations concern the violation of boundary lines and various disputed lands.’
[3]
Sieroszewski’s material on punishment seems to refer to Yakut assemblies rather than Russian courts: ’In 1867, according to official data, 1870 cases were judged in the upravas in the vicinity of Yakutsk: out of the total, 1855 concerned land disputes; in the Vilyuysk Okrug, out of 3786 cases, more than half had to do with land. Besides levying fines the Yakut also punish a guilty party by reprimanding him publicly, before the assembly, by sending him on some job, or putting him into solitary confinement. The latter is apparently a Russian innovation. Punishment with birch-rods was quite unknown to the Yakut in the past. Even now they have recourse to this very rarely and with great distaste. In the north they did not even know what this was like, and once, in the Kolymsk Ulus, when the assembly did not known what to do with one of its disobedient members and decided, on the advice of some Yakut who had come from the south, to flog him, they turned to me with questions: where should we beat him?, and do we have to lay him down and undress him or is that not permitted? (Kolymsk Ulus, Undzha, 1883). Usually the influence of the commune is quite sufficient to exert necessary compulsion. In the south, where the ties of the commune have weakened, we find disobedient people whose cattle are taken away as a punishment, or who are forced to obey. Many decisions of the clan assemblies astonished me by their strangeness, but once I looked closer into their life and made thorough inquiries into their motives I always found at the bottom a deep respect for the individual and a striving toward equality. Naturally I say nothing about those decisions which are demonstrably incorrect, and not in accord with custom and the conscience of the people, but which they have been forced to make because of the economic pressure of unscrupulous rich people or because of administrative arbitrariness.’
[4]
Clerical courts occasionally prosecuted polygamy prior to that date: ’Such polygamy, which is tolerated for the above reasons, and which has existed since ancient times and does not do any harm, had not become bad in the judgement of the Yakut, and no regulations for the abolition of this custom have been set up by the Yakut. However, since the Yakut adopted the Christian faith, and as they have become enlightened by strict surveillance and sometimes by indulgent reprimands from the eparchial priests, it has been gradually dying out, but nevertheless denunciations on this subject are made concerning people who have lawfully wedded wives but keep the others, and people who had several wives before conversion and married one of them in church without leaving the others, who were left at home with their children; in the case of such a denunciation the local authorities, on the grounds of the repugnance of the Christian religion for this custom, pressed formal charges, and the guilty parties were handed over to the clerical court as fornicators, and the cases were decided according to general state laws, which constituted and still constitute and extreme burden for the Yakut.’
[5]
[1]: Kharuzin, Aleksai Nikolaevich 1898. “Juridicial Customs Of The Yakut”, 40p [2]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 797 [3]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 798 [4]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 799 [5]: Samokvasov, D. I. A. 1876. “Collection Of Customary Law Of The Siberian Natives”, 14 |
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On January 4th, 1923, the Presidium of the Government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) adopted a resolution on the Provisional Composition of the RSFSR Supreme Court. It was made public on January 10th, 1923, in Order No. 1 of the Supreme Court.
The RSFSR Supreme Court performed judicial supervision over all courts of other Republics. [1] [1]: “Information about the Supreme Court.” Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, https://vsrf.ru/en/about/info/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2023. Zotero link: ECHKATUG |
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The judicial disputes presided over by village headmen do not constitute courts in the conventional sense of the term: ’The responsibility of the headman is to look after the affairs of his anak-biak , or followers, and, as a matter of course, he is expected to know every aspect of customary adat . If a dispute is referred to the headman, he will attempt to settle it with the help of the Tuai Umai or Tuai Burong (the farm leader or augury expert, respectively), and other village members who are well versed in customary adat . The Tuai Burong is an expert in various kinds of augury as well as being well versed in the genealogies and history of his community.’
[1]
But the Brooke administration established courts on district/polity level: ’By 1900, Brooke control of Sarawak was fairly well established. The government was gradually extending its efforts into such fields as agricultural research. As it established a system of courts and law, effort was made, whenever possible, to codify and preserve local customary law ( adat ). From this time on, the mainstream of Iban migration was much less violent, despite cultural ideals, and as we will see, much slower. However, government regulations notwithstanding, the migrations did not cease.’
[2]
Iban communities occasionally made use of the colonial system of courts seeking verdicts in translocal matters: ’The Chinese-Iban relationship was not entirely harmonious. The Chinese sometimes cheated their customers by using rigged scales to weigh jungle produce, but the Ibans retaliated by mixing earth and other trash into the gutta, and later they learned to practice similar tricks with cultivated rubber as well. The early outstation Chinese were often rough and roistering, the Ibans were hot tempered, and communal quarrels inevitably occurred. Ibans sometimes protested in the Simanggang court when rowdy shopkeepers pinched the exposed bosoms of their women. After one such incident the magistrate observed, “More than one complaint has been made by Dayaks of Chinamen behaving thus, and it is disgraceful that a woman cannot walk in the bazaar without being assaulted in an indecent manner by Chinamen.”’
[3]
We have assumed the same provisional date of transition as above.
[1]: Sandin, Benedict, and Clifford Sather 1980. “Iban Adat And Augury”, 3 [2]: Austin, Robert Frederi. 1978. “Iban Migration: Patterns Of Mobility And Employment In The 20Th Century”, 16 [3]: Pringle, Robert Maxwell 1968. “Ibans Of Sarawak Under Brooke Rule, 1841-1941”, 490 |
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Disputes between villagers were settled by respected elders rather than in formal courts: ’In every Sheng Miao village there is a set of rules and regulations which are voluntarily observed. In case of violation the offense is quickly adjudged by the public and an elder is invited to execute the punishment. Before it is carried out, however, he would tell the accused in a solemn manner the myths of their ancestors. Also in the case of a serious dispute the elder would summon both parties together, and first tell them the story of their ancestors before settling the dispute. After a decision is rendered in this fashion both parties would show compliance and would not carry the case to the law courts. Although the mythology handed down from mouth to mouth does not have religious contents, it becomes a kind of prophecy to those people who hold everything pertaining to their ancestors in the highest respect. It is entirely due to this inherent respect for their ancestors that the ancestral myth is recounted before carrying out the punishment or at the time of settling a dispute. The idea is to employ the will of the ancestors to restrain the actions of their descendants. It is interesting to note that the mythology of the Sheng Miao, meant originally to inform posterity of the stories of their ancestors’ life, has also assumed the corrective and preventive functions of law.’
[1]
’These, of course, were only a few of the disputes which arose in the village or among the whole group of Cowrie Shell Miao. Most small matters were settled among themselves. Much of the old man’s time was taken up with such cases. Sometimes others of the village elders were called in for consultation. This was according to the Chinese Government system, though in effect this formed the village government, or council. If matters could not be settled by them, they were taken before the lien pao official, and, if necessary, to the hsien magistrate.’
[2]
Cases were occasionally decided by ordeal: ’The Miao are addicted to kuei and to litigation. Sometimes litigation may last a year, and the court, unable to decide the case, may ask both parties to eat blood. This serves as a deterrent. Yen Ju-yü in his Miao Fang-pei Lan says: “Those who enter the temple to drink blood move on their knees and bellies, not daring to look up; those who are in the wrong dare not drink it, but repent and yield.” In the course of our investigations in the Miao frontier area, the private secretary of the hsien government at Feng-huang, Mr. Wang Yüeh-yen told us: “The T ’ien Wang temple is the Supreme Court of the Miao area. When a Miao is not satisfied with the decision of the hsien government, then he is ordered to go to the T ’ien Wang temple to drink blood. Whatever the litigation, big or small, it receives immediate settlement.” It can be seen that the Miao’s awe of kuei is greater than their awe of the law.’
[3]
Formal courts presided over by Chinese judges were located in towns and handled disputes that could not be settled on the local level: ’Like Kweiyang, the hsien city of Lung-li was in an open plain, but a narrow one. The space between the mountains was sufficient for a walled town of one long street between the east and west gates and one or two on either side. There were fields outside the city walls. Its normal population was between three and four thousand, augmented during the war by the coming of some “companies” for the installation and repair of charcoal burners in motor lorries and the distillation of grain alcohol for fuel, an Army officers’ training school, and the engineers’ corps of the railway being built through the town from Kwangsi to Kweiyang. To it the people of the surrounding contryside, including at least three groups of Miao and the Chung-chia, went to market. It was also the seat of the hsien government and contained a middle school, postal and telegraph offices, and a cooperative bank, with all of which the non-Chinese, as well as the Chinese, had some dealings. A few of the more well-to-do families sent one of their boys to the middle school. Cases which could not be settled in the village or by the lien pao official, who was also a Chinese, were of necessity brought to the hsien court, as well as cases which involved both Miao and Chinese.’
[4]
’The Magpie Miao live in villages, occasionally compact but normally consisting of a cluster of separate hamlets. These are located on mountain slopes, usually far enough away from main transportation routes to be inaccessible and readily defensible. The Miao lack any political organization of their own, and are thoroughly integrated into the Chinese administrative system. The basic political, as well as economic and social unit, is the village. Villages are grouped into townships and divided into hamlets of about ten to twenty households each. The headmen of both the village and the hamlet are appointed by the chief of the township. The members of different villages or hamlets are bound principally by affinal ties. They may cooperate for the common good, but they lack any formal organization of an indigenous character. Disputes between members of the same hamlet are settled, if possible, within the hamlet. Those between members of different hamlets of the same village are adjudicated by a council composed of the village headman and the heads of the hamlets involved. If this council cannot effect a settlement, the litigants have a right to carry their dispute to the chief of the township or even to the Chinese court of the county.’
[5]
Given how Hmong villagers made use of the Chinese legal system, we have decided to code the variable ’present’.
[1]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow", 76 [2]: Mickey, Margaret Portia 1947. “Cowrie Shell Miao Of Kweichow”, 45a [3]: Ling, Shun-sheng, Yifu Ruey, and Lien-en Tsao 1947. “Report On An Investigation Of The Miao Of Western Hunan”, 228 [4]: Mickey, Margaret Portia 1947. “Cowrie Shell Miao Of Kweichow”, 40b [5]: Rui, Yifu 1960. “Magpie Miao Of Southern Szechuan”, 145 |
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Specialist courts require a culture of high degree of literacy not present at this time.
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Kinsmen of the dead, not courts, decided on the course of action taken: ’Feuding or warfare is endemic among the Jivaro. Because of the retaliatory nature of legal sanctions in the society, the application of avenging action frequently initiates long and drawn out hostilities between two groups of kinsmen. This pattern of repeated application of sanctions by two families against one another is a dominant preoccupation especially among the interior Jivaro. These feuds may be formally ended by payment to the deceased’s relatives, or when one of the eldest men on one side is killed, or when each group of kinsmen has lost a man.’
[1]
’After this idea took hold, they travelled upriver to the settlement of Bupátä’s brother Ungúmï, a húndach, or old one (although he is only about 45 years old), to seek his counsel. Then, Santü journeyed further north into Ecuador to converse with Mukwíngü, the mother’s brother of Bupátä and Ungúmï. Such counsel, as I have indicated, forms an important part of the protocol that characterizes the pattern of Achuarä hostilities. Not every death attributed to sorcery is avenged, especially in the case of young children. But, once a homicide is committed in retaliation for perceived sorcery-related deaths, it inevitably calls forth a revenge raid sometime in the future on the part of close relatives-brothers-in-law or sons-in-law, usually-of the victims. Should their retaliation prove successful, close relatives of the person whose death initiated the feud also become obligated to avenge the more recent killing. Each successive death draws greater numbers of relatives into the feud on each side, and more and more lives are placed in jeopardy.’
[2]
The material suggests that the Shuar population was not pulled into the settler court system during the Spanish colonial period: ’In retaliation against the ravages of whites and such client Amerindians, some groups responded with force to outside efforts at settlement and exploitation. It is within this general context that our knowledge of Jivaroan warfare and feuding exists; and while the causes of Jívaro conflict lie in good part in environmental factors, this wider dimension cannot be ignored. As early as 1599, the Jivaroan peoples razed the Spanish gold-mining towns of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru, where Indian labor was being exploited to fill the coffers of the Spanish crown (Harner 1972:18-26; Izaguirre 1929/XI:11-19). Subsequent efforts to reestablish mines in the same region of the upper Santiago River have been persistently resisted as have other forms of occupation that have been attempted in or around the Jivaroan area.’
[3]
[1]: Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Jivaro [2]: Bennett Ross, Jane 1984. “Effects Of Contact On Revenge Hostilities Among The Achuará Jívaro”, 102 [3]: Bennett Ross, Jane 1984. “Effects Of Contact On Revenge Hostilities Among The Achuará Jívaro”, 84 |
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"While the necessary reliance on archaeological evidence has ensured that many aspects of Harappan civilization, such as economic activities, settlements, industry, and biological anthropology, have been investigated as well as or better than those of literate civilizations, the absence of intelligible documentary material is a major handicap to understanding Harappan social and political organization and has put some aspects of Harappan life, such as the law, quite beyond cognizance."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008: 245) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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Local disputes are settled in informal village councils: ‘Among the Garos most disputes arise over the issues of property, inheritance, and domestic quarrels within the family. Such problems are to a large extent settled by the MAHARI (lineage) of the offended and the offender. A new situation develops when someone’s cattle cause damage to another’s crops. Under such situation the NOKMA (village headman) acts as an intermediary only. If he fails to settle the dispute, the matter can go to the civil court of the district council.’
[1]
‘The Garo system of trial of cases beings with earth-taking. The complainant and the accused both swear by taking a lump of soil in their hands in front of the gathering with a promise that they will state the truth and nothing but the truth. It is believed by some Garos that this is the origin of the word “A’chik”, others believed that they have been called the A’chiks as they inhabited the high undulating land.’
[2]
More serious cases are handled by regional and district-level courts: ‘Many of the disputes of the Garos decided in their village Panchayats. When a man has some complaints against another he reports them to the Nokma or the village-head. If the nature of the complaints is simple, the Nokma in a meeting of the few leading persons of the village, decides the dispute; but if the nature of the complaints is complicated and not easy of solution the Nokma reports the matter to the Laskar. The Laskar is a very important and influential man in the Garo Hills District. The hills areas are divided into some elekas and each of such elekas is placed under a Laskar for convenient collection of the house tax as well as for deciding the disputes of small nature locally. The Laskar need not essentially be a literate man, worldly prudence is enough for the management of his eleka. In practice a Laskar wields immense influence in his eleka.’
[3]
‘The cases which are brought to the courts are serious and quite entangled ones, otherwise these could be decided amicably at the mahari or chra level in the village. When one does have a dispute involving an alien village, one does not get any support from any member of that village since they do not belong to the same clan. The village authority decides the case and gives judgement according to the customary law.’
[4]
The laskars act as intermediaries between different courts: ‘The laskar had his jurisdiction over many villages and was the agent of the British Administration. This system still continues at the district level. The laskar used to bring the cases to the subordinate District Council Court from the Village Court. From the District Council Court the appeals could be preferred to the High Court at Gauhati.’
[5]
Groups of laskars may also fulfill judicial functions on the intermediate level: ‘When the Britishers took over the administration of this district, one witnessed an imposition of hierarchy of new political and administrative units in the district over the traditional democratic village set-up. The British Government, being actuated with the desire to have effective control over the villages and to facilitate the collection of revenues and house tax introduced the office of laskar with limited police, civil and criminal powers. Accordingly there was a laskar over a circle of villages; each having jurisdiction covering ten or twelve of villages. Although, the villagers were left to settle all disputes through the nokma and the village courts, they had right to appeal to the court of laskars against the decisions of the village councils.’
[6]
[1]: Roy, Sankar Kumar: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Garo [2]: Sangma, Mihir N. 1995. “Garos: The Name, Meanings, And Its Origin”, 38 [3]: Choudhury, Bhupendranath 1958. “Some Cultural And Linguistic Aspects Of The Garos”, 40 [4]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 164 [5]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 42 [6]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 52 |
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Icelandic assemblies relied on a legal code but established no formal institutions for the purpose of law enforcement: ’Iceland had established systems of laws, assemblies, and judicial institutions to serve in resolving conflict but no centralized power to enforce order or verdicts. Everyone was legally required to belong to a farming household and individual farmers had authority over and responsibility for their households. Disputes, including injuries and killings, were settled through arbitration. The offending party paid compensation to the offended party. In more extreme cases the offending individual was outlawed, either for three years or permanently, and was official cast out of society and any right to compensation. Prosecution and collection of settlements was up to private individuals. Conflicts often overstepped institutional boundaries into blood feuds. Feuds could escalate well beyond the immediate individuals or households until the involved whole social networks. With the rise of chiefly power and territoriality in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries regional conflicts developed that eventually encompassed t he entire island. The decades of civil strife ended in 1262 A.D. when Iceland came under the authority of the Norwegian crown.’
[1]
Enforcement of settlements was the responsibility of the individual and therefore highly dependent on social and political power: ’Turner (1971) recognized that there was no state in medieval Iceland, and that while there was law, it did not count for much. Force was decisive. Miller asks under what circumstances people settled disputes by arbitration rather than legal judgments or violent self-help (1984). He describes the system of assemblies, courts, quarters, chieftains and followers, and points out that the sanction behind all legal judgments was feud or the fear of it. There were no corporate kin groups, and in any situation the kin group “had to be actively [Page 234] assembled,” its composition reflecting the “popularity, wealth, and persuasive skills of the organizer” and the seriousness of the wrong to be remedied (p. 99). Kin bonds were stronger closer to home, but this pattern was offset by attendance at the general assembly, where relatives tended to each others’ business.’
[2]
’One of the peculiarities of early Iceland was the lack of formal state institutions. The legislature, extensive law code, and judicial system of local and higher courts left prosecution and the enforcement of settlements in the hands of individuals. From an early date, the country was divided into Quarters. Each quarter constituted a broad community with three assemblies (ÞINGS), with the exception of the Northern Quarter that had four, and a system of local courts. Once a year the General Assembly (ALÞINGI) met in the southwest of Iceland. Judicial cases that could not be resolved in local quarters were heard and the parliament (LÖGRÉTTA) convened. The parliament was the principal legislative institution and was responsible for the introduction and maintanence of law. It consisted of chieftains (GOÐAR) from the local quarters. After the conversion to Christianity, the two Icelandic bishops were each given a seat in the parliament. The institution of chieftaincy (GOÐORÐ) was the main locus of political leadership in the country. Originally there were 36 but this number was later expanded. Chieftaincies themselves were a form of property and could be alienated and even divided among multiple individuals. In some cases, individuals asserted power beyond the scope of the political system and controlled multiple chieftaincies. All independent farmers had to be affiliated with a chieftain, although they could choose among any of the chieftains in their quarter and could switch allegiances if they did not feel that their needs were being met. Other than a seat on the parliament, chieftains had few rights beyond those of other independent farmers and few institutional means of dominating others. Chieftains derived much of their authority from their ability to broker support as advocates for their constituents in legal disputes or feuds.’
[1]
Entitlement to personal property was equally defended by force: ’In Commonwealth Iceland there was a system of extraction based on claims to ownership of property, on concepts of the unproblematic [Page 161] differential access to resources in favour of a chieftainly class. The chieftains were unwilling to subordinate themselves to state institutions to protect their privileged positions. The consequence was stratification without a state, the contradiction of an economic system based on property relationships without a congruent institutional system to enforce them. Ownership was as sound as the force one could muster to defend it. There was a complex system of law, but it was all just so much labyrinthine rhetoric in the face of the stark reality that power decided. As slavery diminished, claimants to land enlarged their holdings by using wage labour and tenancy arrangements to work them. To support their claims, they had to increase their power by enlarging their entourages.’
[3]
State-enforced justice was formalized only during the Norwegian period: ’From the legal and political perspective, it is more or less agreed that the absorption of the Icelandic Commonwealth by the Norwegian monarchy after 1263 changed substantially the penal nature of outlawry and the legal status of the outlaw in society. Banishment from the community or exile from the country became a dead letter of law, as in the Jónsbók of 1281 (1970), even though magicians would occasionally be banished as late as the seventeenth century (Reykers 1936:16). And as a fugitive from justice rather than the outcast of the community, the postmedieval Icelandic outlaw was no longer punishable by the people he had wronged but instead by state-appointed magistrates and the public executioner. This was the sort of juridical transition from personal vengeance to state-enforced ‘justice’ which Lord Acton would have approved of but Andreas Heusler deplored.’
[4]
There were no court buildings.
[1]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders [2]: Durrenberger, E. Paul 1989. “Anthropological Perspectives On The Commonwealth Period”, 233 [3]: Durrenberger, E. Paul, Dorothy Durrenberger, and Ástráður Eysteinsson 1988. “Economic Representation And Narrative Structure In Hœnsa-Þóris Saga”, 160 [4]: Amory, Frederic 1992. “Medieval Icelandic Outlaw: Lifestyle, Saga, And Legend”, 190 |
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’The first Chinese envoys who wrote about Fu- nan in about 250 c.e. described it as an urbanized kingdom that resembled the Chinese state rather than the region’s other tribal social systems. They pointed to the structured political hierarchy and bureaucracy including a centralized judiciary system, institutionalized religion, and even libraries.’
[1]
[1]: (West 2009, p. 224) |
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Courts were present throughout the period for the Grand Duchy and its vassal states. [Perrie 2006, p. 365]
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It seems unlikely that buildings specialised for legal proceedings were present, considering that lawsuits were one of the many responsibilities held by bu chiefs.
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Not enough data, though it seems to reasonable infer absence.
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No mention of specialist court buildings.
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During the Saite Period there was a kind of court process but there may not have been a "court building".
[1]
In Late Period Egypt "Egyptian women (unlike Greeks) could act in transactions on their own behalf and without any guardian whatsoever; equally, women could come forward in law-courts totally unaided as plaintiffs or defendants. And it is quite evident that women were capable of independent economic activities regardless of marital status." [2] [1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication) [2]: (Allam 1990, 33) Allam, S. 1990. Women as Holders of Rights in Ancient Egypt (During the Late Period). Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol. 33, No. 1 (1990), pp. 1-34. BRILL |
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multiple references to courts in following sources referring to the Abbasid period
[1]
[2]
[3]
[1]: (Tillier, M., 2009. Women before the Qādī under the Abbasids. Islamic Law and Society, 16(3-4), pp.280-301. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7SKACCD7/item-list). [2]: (Tillier, M., 2009. Qadis and the political use of the mazalim jurisdiction under the’Abbasids. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/I4769ESG/item-list) [3]: (Ziadeh, F., 1996. Compelling defendant’s appearance at court in Islamic law. Islamic Law and Society, 3(3), pp.305-315. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TWIBVCXP/item-list) |
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Official regulations covered "private property rights, the rule of law, trial by jury".
[1]
"In the case of Britain and the states that obtained independence from it, the two important components are Parliament as supreme law-maker and the nature and jurisdiction of courts."
[2]
[1]: (Burroughs 1999) Peter Burroughs. Imperial institutions and the Government of Empire. Andrew Porter. ed. 1999. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Taucar 2014) Christopher Edward Taucar. 2014. The British System of Government and Its Historical Development. McGill-Queen’s University Press. |
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Goodenough mentions colonial courts that dealt with issues that could not be resolved on the local level: ’As soon as courts were re-established, they were deluged with property disputes. The Japanese had treated grants of corporation land to the children of one of its men as if they were an inheritance by a man’s children of his individually owned land. The result was that many disputes coming before the American high court were between the members of a corporation and the children of its men. The latter were disputing the residual title of the former and claiming full title for themselves, and the former were asserting their confiscatory and reversionary rights under traditional residual title. The court undertook seriously to follow local custom, but some witnesses presented the rulings of the Japanese courts as representing local custom whereas others presented the traditional system as local custom, depending on which representation was to their immediate advantage.The high court, I am told, chose to follow the precedent set by the Japanese and ruled that if it could be established that a corporation grant to the children of one of its men had been made with the consent of the corporation’s members, then the children had [Page 80] the same rights as if it had been their father’s personal property.’
[1]
[1]: Goodenough, Ward Hunt 1974. “Changing Social Organization On Romónum, Truk, 1947-1965”, 79 |
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Legal procedure known from Formularies and case records. Courts. Used Roman tradition of written evidence. Law not homogeneous "each person was entitled to be judged according to the law of his or her place of birth or ethnic group." Royal Court was the highest court, settled disputes between magnates.
[1]
[1]: (Fouracre in Wood ed. 1998, 286-289) |
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Following polity: "The statute-book, the judiciary, and courts of law with their prisons and instruments of punishment, were unknown"
[1]
.
[1]: J. Monette, History of the discovery and settlement of the valley of the Mississippi, by the three great European powers, Spain, France, and Great Britain (1971 [c. 1846]), p. 191 |
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Inferred from the below quotes, which broadly referred to Muslim rule in India.
Different courts were used for the different law codes (which included the Muslim tashrii law and non-Muslim ghair tashrii law). Courts did not however extend into the more rural communities where village laws continued to be enforced. [1] "Cases involving non-Muslim subjects were decided according to their own particular religious laws by panchayats in the villages." [2] [1]: Habibullah, A. B. M. (1961). The foundation of Muslim rule in India. Central Book Depot, pp 272-4. [2]: (Ahmed 2011, 99) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. |
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“The court in the palace was a separate building. There the interested parties argued and witnesses were called.”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2001, 112) Lewis, Herbert S. 2001. Jimma Abba Jifar, an Oromo Monarchy: Ethiopia, 1830-1932. Lawrenceville, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NRZVWSCD/collection |
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The judicial disputes presided over by village headmen do not constitute courts in the conventional sense of the term: ’The responsibility of the headman is to look after the affairs of his anak-biak , or followers, and, as a matter of course, he is expected to know every aspect of customary adat . If a dispute is referred to the headman, he will attempt to settle it with the help of the Tuai Umai or Tuai Burong (the farm leader or augury expert, respectively), and other village members who are well versed in customary adat . The Tuai Burong is an expert in various kinds of augury as well as being well versed in the genealogies and history of his community.’
[1]
But the Brooke administration established courts on district/polity level in the colonial period only: ’By 1900, Brooke control of Sarawak was fairly well established. The government was gradually extending its efforts into such fields as agricultural research. As it established a system of courts and law, effort was made, whenever possible, to codify and preserve local customary law ( adat ). From this time on, the mainstream of Iban migration was much less violent, despite cultural ideals, and as we will see, much slower. However, government regulations notwithstanding, the migrations did not cease.’
[2]
[1]: Sandin, Benedict, and Clifford Sather 1980. “Iban Adat And Augury”, 3 [2]: Austin, Robert Frederi. 1978. “Iban Migration: Patterns Of Mobility And Employment In The 20Th Century”, 16 |
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multiple references to courts in following sources
[1]
[2]
[3]
[1]: (Tillier, M., 2009. Women before the Qādī under the Abbasids. Islamic Law and Society, 16(3-4), pp.280-301. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7SKACCD7/item-list). [2]: (Tillier, M., 2009. Qadis and the political use of the mazalim jurisdiction under the’Abbasids. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/I4769ESG/item-list) [3]: (Ziadeh, F., 1996. Compelling defendant’s appearance at court in Islamic law. Islamic Law and Society, 3(3), pp.305-315. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TWIBVCXP/item-list) |
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inferred present under Seleucids. may have been present at start then lost.
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Copied from IqAkkad. "There was also a formal court procedure before judges, but this cost money, so was presumably resorted to only by people with means. Judges were important dignitaries, entitled to enjoy the income from good-sized estates given them by the king’s officials; the act of judging was a divine attribute, associated with profound knowledge, probity, fairness, and wisdom, rather than with specific legal training."
[1]
[1]: (Foster 2016, 38) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. |
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"Not obeying an order to appear in court was regarded as an obstruction of justice (azismand)".
[1]
The highest legal official was the mowbedan mowbed, the top religious leader within the Zoroastrian church [1] , whose precise relationship with the sahr dadwaran dadwar (the judge of the judges of the State, the head of the state judges) [1] is unknown. The mowbed were priest judges. [2] Judges known as rads were among other city officials including tax officials who "represented the central government and were responsible to provincial administrators". [3] The king could "pass judgement in criminal cases, as we may conclude from the Acts of the Christian Martyrs (see Wiessner 1967)." [2] [1]: (Shaki 2011) Shaki, Mansour. 2011. CLASS SYSTEM iii. Encylopaedia Iranica. Vol. V. Fasc. 6. pp. 652-658. Site accessed 21 September 2016: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/class-system-iii [2]: (Macuch 2012) Macuch, Maria. 2016. Judicial and Legal Systems iii. Sasanian Legal System. Vol. XV. Fasc. 2. pp. 181-196. Site accessed: 21 September 2016: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/judicial-and-legal-systems-iii-sasanian-legal-system [3]: (Lambton 2011) Lambton, Ann K S. 2011. CITIES iii. Administration and Social Organization. Encyclopedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii |
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Evidence for courts was not discussed in the literature, but may have been present based on the presence of a formal legal code and magistrates.
[1]
[1]: Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
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Sharia courts. Mazalim court. Courts of governors and military officers.
The "mazalim court" was a "potent symbol of sovereignty. Seljuk sultans sat in mazalim in person and conferred decision-making powers on subordinates. Qadis and viziers also consulted with the mazalim court and sometimes presided over it in the sultan’s name. Governors and military officers, besides holding their own courts, also enforced the judgements of the shariah courts, fulfilling their responsibility to preserve order, punish criminals, and keep the roads safe." [1] [1]: (Darling 2013, 96) Darling, Linda T. 2013. A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization. Routledge. |
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During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons."
[1]
Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas
[2]
(introduced by the 3rd Century BCE
[3]
) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom.
[1]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) [2]: (Berger 1968, 742) [3]: (Stearns 2001) |
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"The criminal law owed much to the reforms of two past lawgivers, the proto-emperor, L. Cornelius Sulla (dictator and consul, 81-80 BC), and the emperor Augustus. Sulla established a number of courts (quaestiones) to try various criminal offences, such as murder and poisoning (or use of charms), or forgery; in the statutes he would have defined the crime and the penalty. In other areas of criminal law, the framework supplied for later developments by the Leges Iuliae, the legislation of Augustus, predominates, with whole sections of the imperial law-codes devoted to imperial enactments relevant to the Julian laws on adulteries, corrupt solicitation (ambitus), extortion (repetundae), treason (maiestas) and on violence)."
[1]
"As jury-courts fell out of use under the Early Empire, to be replaced by hearings before a single magistrate or judge, the courts established by the criminal statutes ceased to operate, but the statues themselves remained, as they specified offence and punishment. People prosecuted for murder, poisoning, or other relevant offences were still prosecuted under Sulla’s law and liable to its penalties." [1] Note (DH): the quaestiones were a sort of ad-hoc special tribunal - it refers to the section of law that the case was under, not an actual building, so ’court’ is a bit of a stretch on the translation in the quote. Trials were still held basically wherever there was space -- bassilicae, fora, etc. During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons." [2] Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas [3] (introduced by the 3rd Century BCE [4] ) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom. [1]: (Harries 2001, 12) Harries, Jill. 2001. Law and Empire in Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [2]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) [3]: (Berger 1968, 742) [4]: (Stearns 2001) |
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"In the Courts of Justice the Podesta or one of his three assessors merely presided; the did not constitute the Court, which was composed of citizens."
[1]
[1]: (? 1902, 263) ?. Chapter VIII. Venice. A W Ward. G W Prothero. Stanley Leathes. eds. 1902. The Cambridge Modern History. Volume I. The Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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|
"The purchase of milk [private property] was registered in the offices of the qadi (judge) through the issue of a wathiqa (legal deed) and was a secure form of property protected by the law."
[1]
[1]: (Davidovich 1997, 147) Davidovich, E A. in Asimov, M S and Bosworth, C E eds. 1997. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume IV. Part I. UNESCO. |
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|
’One major feature of the ’imperial state’ was its maintenance of a large court and a corps of officials. Angkor has a sizeable bureaucracy staffed by officials of many sorts. Like so much about the Khmer kingdom in ancient times, the structure of government and the categories of the civil service are known to us through temple inscriptions, which frequently name various types of official or local dignitary in listing those present to witness the formal demarcation of land bestowed upon religious foundations; they mention a variety of grades and titles, some of them obscure. The khlon rajakarya was responsible for the administration of ’royal work’, probably corvee among other things. The tamrvac was an inspector; the officials who swore allegiance to Suryavarman I had this title, for example. The gunadosadarsin (assessor of virtues and defects) was concerned with temple property. A variety of functionaries were called khlon (inspector) and had responsibilities in various areas such as grain, temple dues, management of religious foundations and several aspects of court proceedings. Revenue was usually in kind, being paid in grain, but some special districts paid in other commodities such as honey and wax. There is evidence that some of the categories in which officials were placed were not types of professional specialisation but divisions of the government service placed under the patronage of particular chiefs belonging to the royal family, a system that was indeed known in later centuries. Some of the groups of dignitaries named in named in the inscriptions, again, appear to have been the bearers of hereditary privileges in the royal household; the term varna, for example, designates any of a number of orders of dignity, which have such official functions as religious teachers, performers of rites, door guardians, garden keepers, palace servants, bearers of flywhisks, and artists.’
[1]
’As in the rest of the Indic world, the Angkor state and empire were government by rules laid down in the Code of Manu, a great compendium of Brahmanic law probably composed around the 4th century BC. [...] Every judicial act was theoretically inscribed on stone as well as on plaques of gold, silver or copper. The Khmer king was the defender of the law and order in Cambodia. His law courts, present on every administrative level right down tot he village, instituted criminal proceedings against transgressors and guaranteed the integrity of landholdings and the settling of boundary problems. Not even religious institutions such as temples were immune, sine they as well as private individuals could be sued over land.’
[2]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, pp.166-167) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 144) |
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’The best known was entered at Ishanapura [...], just east of the Great Lake (Tonle Sap) in Cambodia, where a dynasty of kings is recorded in inscriptions (Vickery 1998). These rulers progressively adopted the characteristics of fully-fledged states, with a central court, splendid temples, water-control measures, and a bureaucracy of office holders.’
[1]
This may be more accurate toward the end of the Funan period, but worth noting: "Before a case reached the king, it might go through various lower courts; inscriptions frequently mention officials who appear to have functions connected with courts of law. There is no way of measuring the extent of discrimination and corruption in the administration of justice. The ideal of fairness to all was certainly recognized; one judge, for example, is declared to have been appointed on the strength of his impartiality.
[2]
[1]: (Higham 2013, 586) [2]: (Mabbett and Changler 1995, 168) |
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|
’The evidence that either mountain was a cult site is stronger than the evidence that Funan was a major, unified kingdom or that its political center was associated with either hill.’
[1]
’Most scholars accept an identification with the Funan kingdom described by Chinese visitors, as early as the third century C.E., as a complex of walled political centers where craft specialists plied their trade, summary justice was adminis- tered, stone inscriptions were engraved, and the range of mortuary practices included inhumations. Angkor Borei may have been the “inland capital” of Funan referred to by the Chinese, as its large area (300 hectares) and plethora of brickwork suggest.’
[2]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, p. 20) [2]: (Bulbeck 2004, p. 876) |
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Coded as absent as sources do not suggest there are written records of a legal code or buildings for legal proceedings.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. [2]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. |
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|
Considering the small size of polities, specialised court buildings were probably absent. Coded as absent as sources do not suggest there were legal writings or buildings for legal proceedings.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. [2]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. |
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|
No evidence for employment specialization characteristic of a developed urban society. Agricultural and herding would be typical occupations with "some internal differentiation ... in view of the sophistication of craft production documented at Mehrgarh.”
[1]
[1]: Agrawal, D. P. (2007) The Indus Civilization: An interdisciplinary perspective. Aryan Books International: New Delhi. |
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|
"Court of the Hippodrome", "Court of the Velum" very well documented - see the entry on "Judges" in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, for instance.
[1]
Courts. However: "There is no text explaining in so many words what courts existed in Constantinople at any one time." [2] [1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Personal Communication. [2]: (Macrides 1994, 60) Macrides R J, in Laiou A E eds. 1994. Law and Society in Byzantium, 9th-12th Centuries. Dumbarton Oaks. |
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|
[1]
Level 2: Royal Courts [2] Level 1: the Council of Elders [1]: Bryce T. (2002) Life and Society in the Hittite World. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 38-39 [2]: Billie J. C.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies ; no. 7) Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 101-103 |
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Coded present for New Kingdom of Hatti (predecessor). "Carchemish and probably Malatya apparently continued from their Late Bronze Age predecessors with little or no interruption."
[1]
Tabal region (Konya Plain): "There is nothing in the material record to indicate that it was significantly affected by the upheavals at the end of the Late Bronze Age, or by the collapse of the Hittite empire. Certainly there is no evidence of a shift of peoples from it in this period."
[2]
[1]: (Bryce 2012, 63) [2]: (Bryce 2002, 43) |
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Fiqh (islamic jurisprudence) knows courts.
[1]
(However, judges could also conduct business from their homes -- it would be good to have a reference. )
[1]: Personal communication. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller. 2016. Institute for Medieval Research. Division of Byzantine Research. Austrian Academy of Sciences. |
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"The urban community, n’b—nàf, had rights of its own in Sogdiana. This is specified in the legal texts."
[1]
. A lawsuit is mentioned: "Without mentioning the case of Maniakh, who mounted an expedition from the Altai to Byzantium, and to whom I will return at greater length below, it is enough to recall the case of Nanai-vandak, who wrote to Samarkand from Guzang/Wuwei, and to compare it with the lawsuit of the Cao family against the Chinese merchant Li of Chang’an: the range of activity in this instance was from Almalig, in the Ili valley north of the Tianshan, to Chang’an, which is not exactly local!"
[2]
"The contract for the lease of the bridge at Panjikent shows that relatively complex legal and commercial formulae were in contemporary use in Sogdiana."
[3]
"On the other hand, we do not possess the texts of any Sogdian laws. We know of their existence from a reference in an inscription on the great painting of Samarkand, but nothing of them has reached us.44 Further to the south, Syriac texts have preserved scraps of the commercial regulations of the Sassanid Empire, and testify to a developed organization of commerce. A detailed jurisprudence made allowances for the risks of long-distance trade (shipwreck, fire, confiscations or plundering) in the rules of compensation in case of bankruptcy, organized the collective ownership of merchandise and the distribution of the shares in case of a separation of the partners, and fixed the rates of interest for merchants providing themselves with credit and counting on the profits from sales for their reim- bursement.45 We can only suppose the existence of such rules among the Sogdians, but the proofs are lacking."
[4]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 168) [2]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 165) [3]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 170-171) [4]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 171) |
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"Among the wealthier sedentary polities of Arabia there existed a more elaborate legal system with more of an institutional framework. A number of the cities of south Arabia had a council (mswd), and at each of the capital cities there was a supreme council where the king sat along with delegates from a certain number of tribal groups, representing the whole nation and issuing edicts on its behalf."
[1]
[1]: (Hoyland 2001, 124) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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inferred from discussion in sources of development/introduction in later periods
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inferred from discussion of sources of development/introduction in later periods
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Kinsmen of the dead, not courts, decided on the course of action taken: ’Feuding or warfare is endemic among the Jivaro. Because of the retaliatory nature of legal sanctions in the society, the application of avenging action frequently initiates long and drawn out hostilities between two groups of kinsmen. This pattern of repeated application of sanctions by two families against one another is a dominant preoccupation especially among the interior Jivaro. These feuds may be formally ended by payment to the deceased’s relatives, or when one of the eldest men on one side is killed, or when each group of kinsmen has lost a man.’
[1]
’After this idea took hold, they travelled upriver to the settlement of Bupátä’s brother Ungúmï, a húndach, or old one (although he is only about 45 years old), to seek his counsel. Then, Santü journeyed further north into Ecuador to converse with Mukwíngü, the mother’s brother of Bupátä and Ungúmï. Such counsel, as I have indicated, forms an important part of the protocol that characterizes the pattern of Achuarä hostilities. Not every death attributed to sorcery is avenged, especially in the case of young children. But, once a homicide is committed in retaliation for perceived sorcery-related deaths, it inevitably calls forth a revenge raid sometime in the future on the part of close relatives-brothers-in-law or sons-in-law, usually-of the victims. Should their retaliation prove successful, close relatives of the person whose death initiated the feud also become obligated to avenge the more recent killing. Each successive death draws greater numbers of relatives into the feud on each side, and more and more lives are placed in jeopardy.’
[2]
The material suggests that the Shuar population was not pulled into the settler court system during the early Ecuadorian period: ’In retaliation against the ravages of whites and such client Amerindians, some groups responded with force to outside efforts at settlement and exploitation. It is within this general context that our knowledge of Jivaroan warfare and feuding exists; and while the causes of Jívaro conflict lie in good part in environmental factors, this wider dimension cannot be ignored. As early as 1599, the Jivaroan peoples razed the Spanish gold-mining towns of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru, where Indian labor was being exploited to fill the coffers of the Spanish crown (Harner 1972:18-26; Izaguirre 1929/XI:11-19). Subsequent efforts to reestablish mines in the same region of the upper Santiago River have been persistently resisted as have other forms of occupation that have been attempted in or around the Jivaroan area.’
[3]
[1]: Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Jivaro [2]: Bennett Ross, Jane 1984. “Effects Of Contact On Revenge Hostilities Among The Achuará Jívaro”, 102 [3]: Bennett Ross, Jane 1984. “Effects Of Contact On Revenge Hostilities Among The Achuará Jívaro”, 84 |
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The following quotes are relevant but do not explicitly confirm the existence of a physical building exclusively devoted to legal proceedings.
van den Boorn (1988) "We want to stress that the vizier apparently does not pronounce a verdict on the dispute itself. He only orders a re-assessment to be carried out by the local officials in charge and stipulates its duration. Therefore, the petitioner’s request is not for a trial or re-trial, his appeal is concerned with obtaining legal permission for a re-assessment by the local authorities. Ultimately, the matter will be settled locally." [1] O’Connor (1983) "Oracles, which were always delivered by a specific god but variously in his ’national’ or local form, were a source of reassurance and guidance for individuals and an important social mechanism easing the tensions and conflicts inherent in closely-knit and largely self-regulating town and village communities. The local kenbet-councils ... were clearly unable or unwilling to solve many disputes involving ownership or rights and cases of theft and other crimes, and these were therefore submitted to a god as a neutral arbitrator of unimpeachable authority." [2] "The New Kingdom kenbet-councils were primarily judicial but they were also quasi-administrative, since they were often concerned with property rights." [3] Archival texts of court proceedings. [4] Courts called kenbet at local and provincial levels. [5] "It is difficult to answer the question of whether the kenbet was a council or a court, or both." [6] Civil service officials controlled the judiciary. Vizier was the chief judge on civil matters. [7] "with priests of the local temples, nomarchs comprised the district court of justice." [8] All officials were responsible for reporting crime to the vizier’s office, which either ratified decisions made by the lower officials or set up an investigation itself (and if necessary enacted a punishment). [9] [1]: (van den Boorn 1988, 165) van den Boorn, G. P. F. 1988. The Duties of the Vizier. Civil Administration in the Early New Kingdom. Kegan Paul International. London & New York. [2]: (O’Connor 1983, 199) O’Connor, David. "New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period 1552-664 BC" in Trigger, B G. Kemp, B J. O’Connor, D. LLoyd, A B. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [3]: (O’Connor 1983, 214) O’Connor, David. "New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period 1552-664 BC" in Trigger, B G. Kemp, B J. O’Connor, D. LLoyd, A B. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [4]: (O’Connor 1983, 185) O’Connor, David. "New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period 1552-664 BC" in Trigger, B G. Kemp, B J. O’Connor, D. LLoyd, A B. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [5]: (Brewer and Teeter 1999, 73 [6]: (Haring 2010) [8]: (Pardey 2001) [9]: (McDowell 2001) |
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The following quotes are relevant but do not explictly confirm the existence of a physical building exclusively devoted to legal proceedings
van den Boorn (1988) "We want to stress that the vizier apparently does not pronounce a verdict on the dispute itself. He only orders a re-assessment to be carried out by the local officials in charge and stipulates its duration. Therefore, the petitioner’s request is not for a trial or re-trial, his appeal is concerned with obtaining legal permission for a re-assessment by the local authorities. Ultimately, the matter will be settled locally." [1] O’Connor (1983) "Oracles, which were always delivered by a specific god but variously in his ’national’ or local form, were a source of reassurance and guidance for individuals and an important social mechanism easing the tensions and conflicts inherent in closely-knit and largely self-regulating town and village communities. The local kenbet-councils ... were clearly unable or unwilling to solve many disputes involving ownership or rights and cases of theft and other crimes, and these were therefore submitted to a god as a neutral arbitrator of unimpeachable authority." [2] "The New Kingdom kenbet-councils were primarily judicial but they were also quasi-administrative, since they were often concerned with property rights." [3] Archival texts of court proceedings. [4] Courts called kenbet at local and provincial levels. [5] "It is difficult to answer the question of whether the kenbet was a council or a court, or both." [6] Civil service officials controlled the judiciary. Vizier was the chief judge on civil matters. [7] "with priests of the local temples, nomarchs comprised the district court of justice." [8] All officials were responsible for reporting crime to the vizier’s office, which either ratified decisions made by the lower officials or set up an investigation itself (and if necessary enacted a punishment). [9] [1]: (van den Boorn 1988, 165) van den Boorn, G. P. F. 1988. The Duties of the Vizier. Civil Administration in the Early New Kingdom. Kegan Paul International. London & New York. [2]: (O’Connor 1983, 199) O’Connor, David. "New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period 1552-664 BC" in Trigger, B G. Kemp, B J. O’Connor, D. LLoyd, A B. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [3]: (O’Connor 1983, 214) O’Connor, David. "New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period 1552-664 BC" in Trigger, B G. Kemp, B J. O’Connor, D. LLoyd, A B. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [4]: (O’Connor 1983, 185) O’Connor, David. "New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period 1552-664 BC" in Trigger, B G. Kemp, B J. O’Connor, D. LLoyd, A B. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [5]: (Brewer and Teeter 1999, 73) [6]: (Haring 2010) [8]: (Pardey 2001) [9]: (McDowell 2001) |
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not present Middle Kingdom. present Old Kingdom.
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Courts were inferred present for Middle Kingdom.
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Courts were inferred present for Middle Kingdom.
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No information found in sources so far.
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There were definitely court buildings, but these were probably used for other purposes.
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Legal disputes were tried in the agora (the central gathering place) of the city.
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primarily nomadic society
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“In 1751 Maria Theresa created a single supreme court located in Vienna for both the Bohemian and Austrian lands.”
[1]
“Among the most radical of these decrees was one in 1784 that regulated marriage as a civil contract and took the power to determine appropriate marriages— for example, among related or divorced individuals— away from the Catholic Church and gave it to the secular courts.”
[2]
“New courts of general jurisdiction under Joseph II operated on the first and second levels of adjudication and appeal and ignored ständisch differences; all citizens became subject to the same criminal code, with local inhabitants having a theoretical right of appeal from manorial courts to the royal courts. Local judges were forced to know the law, since appeals to royal courts were written, not oral. The regional Estates were nearly powerless to resist—they had no army, the great aristocrats had torn loyalties, and the provinces did not trust each other.”
[3]
[1]: (Judson 2016: 28) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW [2]: (Judson 2016: 70) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW [3]: (Boyer 2022: 8) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD |
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Highly likely given that they had a formal legal code, law schools and lawyers but this has not been mentioned in the sources consulted.
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I have yet to find definitive evidence in this period but as courts were present in the proceeding and succeeding periods it is likely they were present in the Muromachi period.
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Not mentioned by sources.
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Not mentioned by sources.
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unknown for previous polity.
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’One major feature of the ’imperial state’ was its maintenance of a large court and a corps of officials. Angkor has a sizeable bureaucracy staffed by officials of many sorts. Like so much about the Khmer kingdom in ancient times, the structure of government and the categories of the civil service are known to us through temple inscriptions, which frequently name various types of official or local dignitary in listing those present to witness the formal demarcation of land bestowed upon religious foundations; they mention a variety of grades and titles, some of them obscure. The khlon rajakarya was responsible for the administration of ’royal work’, probably corvee among other things. The tamrvac was an inspector; the officials who swore allegiance to Suryavarman I had this title, for example. The gunadosadarsin (assessor of virtues and defects) was concerned with temple property. A variety of functionaries were called khlon (inspector) and had responsibilities in various areas such as grain, temple dues, management of religious foundations and several aspects of court proceedings. Revenue was usually in kind, being paid in grain, but some special districts paid in other commodities such as honey and wax. There is evidence that some of the categories in which officials were placed were not types of professional specialisation but divisions of the government service placed under the patronage of particular chiefs belonging to the royal family, a system that was indeed known in later centuries. Some of the groups of dignitaries named in named in the inscriptions, again, appear to have been the bearers of hereditary privileges in the royal household; the term varna, for example, designates any of a number of orders of dignity, which have such official functions as religious teachers, performers of rites, door guardians, garden keepers, palace servants, bearers of flywhisks, and artists.’
[1]
’As in the rest of the Indic world, the Angkor state and empire were government by rules laid down in the Code of Manu, a great compendium of Brahmanic law probably composed around the 4th century BC. [...] Every judicial act was theoretically inscribed on stone as well as on plaques of gold, silver or copper. The Khmer king was the defender of the law and order in Cambodia. His law courts, present on every administrative level right down tot he village, instituted criminal proceedings against transgressors and guaranteed the integrity of landholdings and the settling of boundary problems. Not even religious institutions such as temples were immune, sine they as well as private individuals could be sued over land.’
[2]
’Below all of this ponderous bureaucracy were the free people of the land, free in the sense that they enjoyed basic civil rights, and could settle wherever they wished. Nonetheless, the obligations of this largely rice-farming class were heavy; the entire able-bodied population between the ages of 20 and 50 owed up to 90 days of core labour annually. Those outside these age limits were called up for only light labour. Exempt from corvee were the monks, Brahmins, the Brah Van, the mandarins and their servants, and all employees of the king. There was no escaping this core, since all males were inscribed by name on census registers that were revised every three years under supervision of the roving commission. At this point, every person would also choose a particular mandarin or even high official in the capital as his patron. With this personage, who was not necessarily connected with the client’s territory, there were mutual obligations: the client owed the patron deference, and respect, services, occasional labour, and the usual small gifts, while the latter gave aid and protection (even legal) to the freeman and accommodation when he had to travel to the capital. It was this system through which corvees were mustered, and foot soldiers called up for Cambodia’s many wars.’
[3]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, pp.166-167) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 144) [3]: (Coe 2003, p. 218) |
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’One major feature of the ’imperial state’ was its maintenance of a large court and a corps of officials. Angkor has a sizeable bureaucracy staffed by officials of many sorts. Like so much about the Khmer kingdom in ancient times, the structure of government and the categories of the civil service are known to us through temple inscriptions, which frequently name various types of official or local dignitary in listing those present to witness the formal demarcation of land bestowed upon religious foundations; they mention a variety of grades and titles, some of them obscure. The khlon rajakarya was responsible for the administration of ’royal work’, probably corvee among other things. The tamrvac was an inspector; the officials who swore allegiance to Suryavarman I had this title, for example. The gunadosadarsin (assessor of virtues and defects) was concerned with temple property. A variety of functionaries were called khlon (inspector) and had responsibilities in various areas such as grain, temple dues, management of religious foundations and several aspects of court proceedings. Revenue was usually in kind, being paid in grain, but some special districts paid in other commodities such as honey and wax. There is evidence that some of the categories in which officials were placed were not types of professional specialisation but divisions of the government service placed under the patronage of particular chiefs belonging to the royal family, a system that was indeed known in later centuries. Some of the groups of dignitaries named in named in the inscriptions, again, appear to have been the bearers of hereditary privileges in the royal household; the term varna, for example, designates any of a number of orders of dignity, which have such official functions as religious teachers, performers of rites, door guardians, garden keepers, palace servants, bearers of flywhisks, and artists.’
[1]
’As in the rest of the Indic world, the Angkor state and empire were government by rules laid down in the Code of Manu, a great compendium of Brahmanic law probably composed around the 4th century BC. [...] Every judicial act was theoretically inscribed on stone as well as on plaques of gold, silver or copper. The Khmer king was the defender of the law and order in Cambodia. His law courts, present on every administrative level right down tot he village, instituted criminal proceedings against transgressors and guaranteed the integrity of landholdings and the settling of boundary problems. Not even religious institutions such as temples were immune, sine they as well as private individuals could be sued over land.’
[2]
’Below all of this ponderous bureaucracy were the free people of the land, free in the sense that they enjoyed basic civil rights, and could settle wherever they wished. Nonetheless, the obligations of this largely rice-farming class were heavy; the entire able-bodied population between the ages of 20 and 50 owed up to 90 days of core labour annually. Those outside these age limits were called up for only light labour. Exempt from corvee were the monks, Brahmins, the Brah Van, the mandarins and their servants, and all employees of the king. There was no escaping this core, since all males were inscribed by name on census registers that were revised every three years under supervision of the roving commission. At this point, every person would also choose a particular mandarin or even high official in the capital as his patron. With this personage, who was not necessarily connected with the client’s territory, there were mutual obligations: the client owed the patron deference, and respect, services, occasional labour, and the usual small gifts, while the latter gave aid and protection (even legal) to the freeman and accommodation when he had to travel to the capital. It was this system through which corvees were mustered, and foot soldiers called up for Cambodia’s many wars.’
[3]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, pp.166-167) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 144) [3]: (Coe 2003, p. 218) |
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From the example of Carthage, as well as that of the Israelites.
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Islamic courts?
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Islamic
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’In several decades of excavation, clear evidence for hierarchies of any kind has yet to be unearthed: it seems that Jenne-jeno had no palaces, rich tombs, temples, public buildings, or monumental architecture. Indeed, the city’s very layout ‒ an assemblage of dispersed clusters - suggests a resistance to centralization.’
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2006, 189) Roderick McIntosh. 2006. Ancient Middle Niger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
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’There were probably no specialized judicial buildings in this time period. However, the courts of law were fully functional even if they didn’t have specialized buildings.’
[1]
The crown appointed Icelandic lawmen or judges: ’These new codes wrought a fundamental change in the conception of positive law as well as in legal practice in Iceland. The old court procedures with its intricacies and formalities was replaced by the simpler Norwegian system. The king was ruler and lawgiver was regarded as the source of justice, and behind the laws now stood the royal authority, ready to execute the decrees of the courts even against the most powerful offenders. Violation of the law was no longer viewed as a private affair to be settled by the offender and the party injured, but as a crime for which the wrong-doer had to answer to the government. The fines to be paid and other punishments to be inflicted were still to be determined by twelve men according to ancient usage. The old punishment of banishment for serious offenses was retained, but fines payable to the king were instituted in numerous cases, and capital punishment was to be inflicted for grave crimes, like murder, robbery, rape, counterfeiting, forgery, and seduction. Other severe punishments were also established. [...] But care had been taken by the lawgiver to guard against hasty action and undue harshness in the treatment of wrong-doers. In a chapter about legal decisions he advises the judges to consider carefully truth, justice, patience and mercy, in order that their decisions not bear the marks of cruelty and hatred. [...] The first lawmen appointed under the new law were Stural Thordsson and Jon Einarsson. The first royal magistrates who received the title of sýslumadr were Hrafn Oddsson in western Iceland, and Thorvard Thorarinsson for the southern and eastern districts, and Asgrim Thorsteinsson in the south-western districts. Others may have been appointed, but their names are not known. In 1279 Hrafn Oddsson became royal merkismadr with authority over all Iceland, as already noted.’
[2]
The lögrétta assumed judicial duties: ’The judicial powers were lodged in the lögrétta; the legislative functions should be exercized by the Althing and the king conjointly. But the thing and the crown might take the initiative in legislation. As the king now acted as lawgiver, the legislative functions of the thing were greatly reduced, and it became principally a judicial tribunal like the Norwegian lagthings. The laws were no longer recited from the Mount of Laws, and as the Althing now consisted of chosen representatives, who were soon further reduced in number, it lost its popular character. As the general public ceased to attend its sessions, its significance as a center of national and social life disappeared.’
[3]
’This was made especially manifest by the new procedure introduced at this time of summoning people to Norway for trial. [...] The king’s officers also travelled about collecting the royal revenues with greater severity that had hitherto been customary. They reproved the people for appealing to the bishop, and in some cases forbade them to pay as large church dues as the bishop had demanded.’
[4]
The practice of summoning Icelanders to Norway for trial met with opposition and was ultimately curtailed: ’This reminder had the result that in 1315 a full representation again met at the Althing from all parts of Iceland. In 1314 he issues a new supplement to the Icelandic code, in which he sought to right some of the wrongs complained of in the remonstrance submitted by the Althing. Regarding the bringing of Icelanders to Norway for trial, the law was made to conform to the remonstrance. A provision was inserted stating that such a step should be taken only if the sýslumenn and lawmen were unable to try the case. The demand for new taxes was definitely dropped. But nothing was said regarding the appointment of native Icelanders for office; nor was any assurance given that six ships would be sent to Iceland every year, though this matter was now of greater importance than ever, since the trade with Iceland had become a Norwegian monopoly. No guarantee existed that the king would respect the provisions in the union agreement. Hitherto he had shown a disposition to place Iceland on the level with the Norwegian dependencies. What the future relation between the two countries was to be seemed as much as ever an unsettled question.’
[5]
The regional courts were abolished: ’The Icelanders also received two new law codes during Magnus’ reign. In 1271 the king sent to Iceland a new legal code known as Járnsída (Ironside), followed by another book which bears the name of its main author, Jón Einarsson, Jónsbók (Jón’s Book). But, contrary to developments in Norway, this second revision led Iceland further from conformity with Norwegian law. Jónsbók was admittedly based largely on Norwegian law, but it was drawn up for Iceland alone, and it remained in force there for four to five centuries, while Norwegian law underwent many revisions. Jónsbók thus made Iceland a separate jurisdictional area under royal rule. Iceland’s system of government was radically altered by Járnsída and Jónsbók. Alpingi continued to meet, but the Law Council, which had been a legislative body, became primarily a court of law. The four regional courts, the Fifth court and the spring assemblies were abolished; new officials, lögmenn (lawmen) and sýslumenn (district commissioners) presided over regional court proceedings as required. Iceland was also assigned its own administrative officials. Around 1300 a demand was first put forward at Alpingi that Icelanders of the old chieftain clans should be apointed royal representatives in Iceland. For centuries after this, most administrative offices were held by Icelanders. Only the office of governor (hirdstjóri), the supreme royal official in Iceland, was held by foreigners as often as Icelanders.’
[6]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [2]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 215pp [3]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 214p [4]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 220 [5]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 233 [6]: Karlsson, Gunnar 2000. "A Brief History of Iceland", 18p |
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No buildings dedicated to justice are recorded in the literature.
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Courts were of colonial origin: ’The term pure ari is appropriate to describe the white man’s labour if for no other reason than that a ‘job’ just like the pure is a place where one spends the day. The new dispensation has, sure enough, its own conflict (isoro) and mode of conflict resolution. Councillor-Colin brings this out by his example of the policeman who puts village men into handcuffs and takes them off to court. In such a case it was the task of the sorcerer to ensure that the men would escape conviction and be set free again.’
[1]
Institutions remained informal on the village level even after colonization: ’For those who remain in the village, the sanctioning mechanisms are mostly informal. Failure in one’s obligations means loss of status, leads to gossip, derogatory remarks to one’s face, perhaps even a harangue at night by a man at the other end in the village. The councillor, the court and the police are only a last resort in serious quarrels. I saw a councillor enter a dispute once, playing a mediating role between disputants from two villages, but without playing more than an advisory role. One quarrel was taken to court, but this was not a case where traditional mechanisms of social control had failed. A woman accused her husband of adultery with one of the new Garombi arrivals. She and the husband fought and had to be separated as the lady had an axe; the domestic dispute soon died down but the Garombi woman laid a complaint for slander with the police. Before this came to court, the wife had been roundly condemned by almost everyone in the village; she had repented, had gone round the village to signify her regrets, and been as contrite as her pride could possibly allow her to be. The court let her off with a reprimand. The episode, far from suggesting a flagging of Orokaiva traditional social control, had demonstrated to me that it was still effective. Nonetheless, the Orokaiva, as so many other peoples in contact with Western civilisation, have been quick to see the advantages of a judicial system providing an impartial arbiter in disputes, to whose decisions both parties will defer. At the moment, this western judicial system is an additional resource of Orokaiva law, without undermining its existing institutions.’
[2]
’There are customary restrictions upon feuding within the tribe, which exist in sharp contrast to the standard acceptance and formalization of hostility between tribes. Formerly, official legal penalties, generally violent, were meted out to criminals. Fear of the ancestors and desire to avoid unfavorable public opinion remain the major mechanisms of social control.’
[3]
[1]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1979. “Self And The Product: Concepts Of Work In Comparative Perspective”, 303 [2]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1969. “Cultural Consequences Of A Volcanic Eruption Experienced By The Mount Lamington Orokaiva”, 182p [3]: Latham, Christopher S.: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Orokaiva |
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During the colonial period, foreign legal institutions became more relevant, with colonial magistrates fulfilling executive and judicial roles: ’Cases of imputed sorcery often come before the magistrate, but not a few of them, I believe, have to be dismissed as unproven. Some of these are deliberately trumped up, but many more are the outcome of mere groundless suspicion. It is probably true, moreover, that but a small proportion of the ‘cases’ are ever referred to the magistrate, for unless the evidence is very strong the native feels there is little hope of securing an indictment. Sorcery and magic, indeed, are often regarded as something a little beyond the ken of the matter-of-fact white man.’
[1]
Courts were of colonial origin: ’The term pure ari is appropriate to describe the white man’s labour if for no other reason than that a ‘job’ just like the pure is a place where one spends the day. The new dispensation has, sure enough, its own conflict (isoro) and mode of conflict resolution. Councillor-Colin brings this out by his example of the policeman who puts village men into handcuffs and takes them off to court. In such a case it was the task of the sorcerer to ensure that the men would escape conviction and be set free again.’
[2]
Institutions remained informal on the village level: ’For those who remain in the village, the sanctioning mechanisms are mostly informal. Failure in one’s obligations means loss of status, leads to gossip, derogatory remarks to one’s face, perhaps even a harangue at night by a man at the other end in the village. The councillor, the court and the police are only a last resort in serious quarrels. I saw a councillor enter a dispute once, playing a mediating role between disputants from two villages, but without playing more than an advisory role. One quarrel was taken to court, but this was not a case where traditional mechanisms of social control had failed. A woman accused her husband of adultery with one of the new Garombi arrivals. She and the husband fought and had to be separated as the lady had an axe; the domestic dispute soon died down but the Garombi woman laid a complaint for slander with the police. Before this came to court, the wife had been roundly condemned by almost everyone in the village; she had repented, had gone round the village to signify her regrets, and been as contrite as her pride could possibly allow her to be. The court let her off with a reprimand. The episode, far from suggesting a flagging of Orokaiva traditional social control, had demonstrated to me that it was still effective. Nonetheless, the Orokaiva, as so many other peoples in contact with Western civilisation, have been quick to see the advantages of a judicial system providing an impartial arbiter in disputes, to whose decisions both parties will defer. At the moment, this western judicial system is an additional resource of Orokaiva law, without undermining its existing institutions.’
[3]
No native courts were introduced by the British and Australian administrations: ’It will be seen, from what I have said, that this book offers a many-sided attraction, but to an administrator the most interesting part is the last chapter. For in that chapter Mr. Williams deals with a phenomenon which has always appeared to me to be very difficult to understand, though it is common enough in Papua, and that is the well-ordered regulation of a peaceful society with apparently no government and no administration of justice to support it. There are no chiefs with any authority worth talking about among the Orokaiva, and the same is true of nearly the whole of Papua, and there are no Courts and no recognized method of enforcing native law or custom, and yet within the community, within what Mr. Williams calls the ‘sympathy group’, life is probably as peaceful and as orderly as it is with us. How this result can be obtained in the absence of any objective sanction is one of the puzzles of native administration.’
[4]
Native offenders were tried by colonial courts instead.
[1]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar) 1928. “Orokaiva Magic”, 215p [2]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1979. “Self And The Product: Concepts Of Work In Comparative Perspective”, 303 [3]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1969. “Cultural Consequences Of A Volcanic Eruption Experienced By The Mount Lamington Orokaiva”, 182p [4]: Williams, F. E. (Francis Edgar), and Hubert Murray 1930. “Orokaiva Society”, xxiip |
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Clan elders fulfilled judicial, but also ceremonial and other duties: ’The oldest kinsman in the clan, or the [unknown]iye-[unknown]usa , is always heaped with honors, if he is both rich and has never been put on trial. To him pertains the jurisdiction in trifling quarrels between kinsfolk. The following ceremonies serve to recall the religious functions that he (Ysekh) formerly exercised a. At the time of the spring festival, which bears a strictly clan character, they bring to him, first of all, a large wooden vessel ( Choron ) containing kumiss; he pronounces a prayer of thanks to the gods and then pours the kumiss upon the fire. b. At the time of the arrival of the betrothed at the bridegroom’s yurt, they take from the sleigh of the betrothed, and place upon a table in front of the fire place the boiled head of a horse, whose eyes are covered with butter, to whose ears are attached intestines filled with horse’s blood, and a wooden cup filled with butter. After this the betrothed enters the yurt, and stands, having first untied her girdle, on the right side of the komelok [RCH: i. e., the fireplace] where she is met by the oldest kinsman, whose place is sometimes taken nowadays by the most honored guest, who, kneeling, throws into the fire pieces of meat, blood and butter, and blesses the bride. For the completion of this ceremony, whose obvious object is to unite the bride with the bridegroom’s home, the oldest kinsman secures for his use the head, blood and butter brought into the yurt, and in addition the sum of one ruble.’
[1]
Clans also handled criminal cases and litigation in assemblies of elders: ’I shall end this survey of Yakut clan institutions and their self-government by a note about Yakut legal procedure. Strictly speaking the Yakut court is the assembly: the clan, nasleg, or ulus assembly, depending on the circumstances. These courts are under each other’s jurisdiction as courts of appeal. The Yakut enjoy waging law suits against each other and witnessing court proceedings. More important matters are always handed over to the assembly. At the assembly the wealthy people usually put in their comments, which areheard attentively, and although the final judgement is pronounced by the chairman of the assembly, he usually simply transmits a condensed form of the general opinion. The ligitants stand before the presiding clansmen with their heads bare, and, frequently nodding their heads and, while making the most important points, making deep bows from the waist, each in turn expound their case. Witnesses are called forth and interrogated on the spot, while unruly witnesses are brought by policemen. The judges always have to sit. In some localities it is customary for the judges to wear caps on their head.’
[2]
Criminal cases were transferred to Russian courts only after 1889: ’Nevertheless until very recently and even criminal cases such as beatings, personal injury, and thefts, even for a considerable amount, as long as a house was not broken into, were judged by the clan administration. Only from the year 1889, when an order came out to proceed against the trible authorities if they did not communicate such matters, have thefts begun to be referred to the Russian courts and judged according to Russian laws. For theft the Yakut usually punished wealthy people by a fine which was two or three times the value of the stolen article, depending on the circumstances. For beatings and personal injuries they sentenced the guilty party to support the injured party during his disablement or to pay him a lump sum. Now the guilty are put in prison, and to the great horror of their neighbors they usually leave out and out scoundrels. Such crimes as the violation of women, the breaking of agreements, fraud, and forgery were apparently unknown to the Yakut and went unpunished. But the violation of the wedding agreement was provided for by the kalym. At the present time most of the cases and statements of claim which come before the clan administrations concern the violation of boundary lines and various disputed lands.’
[3]
[1]: Kharuzin, Aleksai Nikolaevich 1898. “Juridicial Customs Of The Yakut”, 40p [2]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 797 [3]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 798 |
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unknown.
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[1]
Level 2: Royal Courts [2] Level 1: the Council of Elders [1]: Bryce T. (2002) Life and Society in the Hittite World. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 38-39 [2]: Billie J. C.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies ; no. 7) Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 101-103 |
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Council houses combined judicial, executive, and legislative with ceremonial functions, but were also residential: ’In 1818, Timothy Alden (1827:54-55) described a similar council house at Tonawanda. It was fifty feet long and twenty wide. On each side of it, longitudinally is a platform, a little more than one foot high and four feet wide, covered with furs, which furnishes a convenient place for sitting, lounging, and sleeping. A rail across the centre separates the males from the females, who are constant attendants and listen, with silence, diligence, and interest, to whatever is delivered in council. Over the platform is a kind of galley, five or six feet from the floor, which is loaded with peltry, corn, implements of hunting, and a variety of other articles. At each end of the building is a door, and near each door, within, was the council fire. . . . Over each fire several large kettles of soup were hanging and boiling. The smoke was conveyed away through apertures in the roof and did not annoy. The chiefs and others, as many as could be accommodated, in their appropriate grotesque habiliments, were seated on the platform, smoking calumets, of various forms, sizes, and materials, several of which were tendered to me in token of friendship. Profound silence pervaded the crowded assembly.’
[1]
’Crimes and offences were so unfrequent under their social system, that the Iroquois can scarcely be said to have had a criminal code. Yet there were certain misdemeanors which fell under the judicial cognizance of the sachems, and were punished by them in proportion to their magnitude. Witchcraft was punishable with death. Any person could take the life of a witch when discovered in the act. If this was not done, a council was called, and the witch arraigned before it, in the presence of the accuser. A full confession, with a promise of amendment, secured a discharge. But if the accusation was denied, witnesses were called and examined concerning the circumstances of the case; and if they established the charge to the satisfaction of the council, which they rarely failed to do, condemnation followed, with a sentence of death. The witch was then delivered over to such executioners as volunteered for the purpose, and by them was led away to punishment. After the decision of the council, the relatives of the witch gave him up to his doom without a murmur.’
[2]
This seems to be true for the reservation period as well: ’Iroquois legal procedure during the reservation period was marked by the absence of symbols. Wampum which had extensive symbolic connotations, both in religious and civil procedures, was used in legal convocations only to convene the judicial body. In the longhouse, wampum validated the confessions of religious performers, but in the trials conducted by the Confederate Council no use of wampum was made to validate the testimony given by litigants. One instance was cited of a trial for murder being conducted in the provincial courts at Brantford wherein the accused, a Six Nations Indian, refused to take an oath upon the Bible and requested that the Council wampum be brought to court for the purpose of validating his oath. It may be suggested that writing had produced new legal symbols such as wills and quit claim deeds. The succeeding chapters will develop in detail the coordination of reservation society by the government of the Confederacy.’
[3]
’The legislative enactments of the Council represent in content an adequate means of coordinating reservation society with particular stress on the regulation of economic activity. The formulation of laws does not of itself assure the coordination of societal activity. Ethical values, as a rule, are not at issue in regulatory legislation, and deprived of the weight of ethical sanction, their enforcement depends heavily upon compulsive mechanisms. The Council, by exercise of its appointive powers, had created an adequate personnel to enforce its legislation. If any weakness existed, it was the neglect to include in their legislation the penalties to be assessed against violators.’
[4]
Decisions taken at Canadian and American federal courts nevertheless affected Iroquois life, especially during the reservation period: ’Finally the case reached the United States Supreme Court, and the Court’s decison forced the United States Senate to resolve the matter. The result was a treaty signed in 1857 by which 7,549 acres of the Tonawanda Reservation were to be bought back with money that had been set aside for their removal to Kansas (fig. 1)(Kappler 1904-1941, 2:767-771).’
[5]
[1]: Tooker, Elisabeth 1970. “Iroquois Ceremonial Of Midwinter”, 19 [2]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. I”, 321 [3]: Noon, John A. 1949. “Law And Government Of The Grand River Iroquois”, 43 [4]: Noon, John A. 1949. “Law And Government Of The Grand River Iroquois”, 59 [5]: Abler, Thomas S., and Elisabeth Tooker 1978. “Seneca”, 512 |
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Courts are not mentioned in Loewe’s
[1]
detailed description of the legal process in Han times.
If there were no courts, what was the Superintendent of trials [2] concerned with? Where were trials held, if not in a place for trials, i.e. courts? [1]: (Loewe 1968, 67-68) [2]: (Bielenstein 1986, 494-499) |
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Specialist, full-time judge unlikely at this time. Before specialist judge we might expect a generalist or part-time judge would evolve, but we have no data. Due to central importance of religious ritual to this authoritarian society we could infer there was no secular sphere of law over which a non-religious specialist could adjudicate.
|
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Specialist, full-time judge unlikely at this time. Before specialist judge we might expect a generalist or part-time judge would evolve, but we have no data. Due to central importance of religious ritual to this authoritarian society we could infer there was no secular sphere of law over which a non-religious specialist could adjudicate.
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"At the capital the three principal organs concerned with legal matters continued to be the Censorate, the Court of Judicial Review (Ta-li ssu), and the Ministry of Justice (Hsing-pu), a pattern which was to continue through the Sung dynasty (960-1279)."
[1]
Lowest level court was the yamen of the county magistrate (chih-hsien). [2] At prefectural level "three (or sometimes four) separate courts". "Ordinary prefectures had a prefectural court (chou-yuan) headed by an executive inspector (lu-shih ts’an-chun), an on-duty office (tang chih-ssu) headed by a staff-supervisor (p’an kuan) or prefectural judge (t’ui kuan), and a court of the police inspector (ssu-li ts’an-chun). In superior prefectural (fu) capitals there were two such police inspectors’ courts (of the right and the left), and in two of the four imperial capitals two courts of the military inspectors (also divided into the right and the left) (tso yu chun-hsun yuan)." [3] [1]: (McKnight 2015, 252) [2]: (McKnight 2015, 264) [3]: (McKnight 2015, 267) |
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"Throughout China’s imperial history, local administrators exercised judicial as well as executive powers in their areas, and routine trial and punishment was, in Sui as in other dynasties, part of their regular duties."
[1]
“[Emperor Xiaowen] promoted Confucian learning, modeled the Northern Wei bureaucratic system and legal system after the Han dynasty as protocol for court proceedings and rituals.”
[2]
[1]: (Wright, Arthur. 1978. The Sui Dynasty: The Unification of China, AD 581-617. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 117) [2]: (Zhao, Dingxin. 2015. The Confucian-Legalist State: A New Theory of Chinese History. Oxford: OUP, 303.) |
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"The Supreme Court of Justice (Ta-li ssu), including both high officials and legal experts, considered the written evidence regarding a serious crime, determined the character of the crime and recommended the final sentence, which was pronounced by the emperor. It is probable that the Supreme Court was primarily a court of appeal or referral while the Board of Justice of the Department of State Affairs gave judgements in many cases where the law was clear."
[1]
[1]: (Wright 1979, 105) |
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"The Legalists were the chief proponents of the use of a penal code to control the people. During the Warring States period, the sovereigns of the various states had little use for morals and rites. They were more concerned with building strong states, strengthening their armies, and enlarging their territories. This can only be realized by being able to keep a submissive people. The Legalists proved more useful for their political aspirations, as they exerted a major influence on Chinese traditional law and legal institutions, which were set up under their direction."
[1]
[1]: (Fu 1993, 107) Fu, Zhengyuan. 1993. Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics. Cambridge University Press. |
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Law courts called parlements established at the Royal Palace in Paris by Philip IV. Justice administration "in the hands of parlements staffed by professional lawyers organized in three chambers."
[1]
Under Louis IX (reign 1226-1270 CE), Parlement de Paris became the highest court of appeal in France. [2] Justice system with courts set up for fairs to enable dispute resolution. [3] [1]: (Spufford 2006, 68) [2]: (Bouchard 1995, 317) [3]: (Spufford 2006, 146) |
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Law courts called parlements established at the Royal Palace in Paris by Philip IV. Justice administration "in the hands of parlements staffed by professional lawyers organized in three chambers."
[1]
Justice system with courts set up for fairs to enable dispute resolution. [2] [1]: (Spufford 2006, 68) [2]: (Spufford 2006, 146) |
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During the Saite Period there was a kind of court process but there may not have been a "court building".
[1]
In Late Period Egypt "Egyptian women (unlike Greeks) could act in transactions on their own behalf and without any guardian whatsoever; equally, women could come forward in law-courts totally unaided as plaintiffs or defendants. And it is quite evident that women were capable of independent economic activities regardless of marital status." [2] [1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication) [2]: (Allam 1990, 33) Allam, S. 1990. Women as Holders of Rights in Ancient Egypt (During the Late Period). Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol. 33, No. 1 (1990), pp. 1-34. BRILL |
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Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446 probably from Thebes 12th-13th Dynasty "confirms information from other sources that a woman in the Middle Kingdom had the right to her own property and that she could start a court action."
[1]
No evidence for the same system of law that existed in the Old Kingdom. [2] All officials were responsible for reporting crime to the vizier’s office, which either ratified decisions made by the lower officials or set up an investigation itself (and if necessary enacted a punishment). [2] [1]: (Van De Mieroop 2011, 119) Van De Mieroop, Marc. 2011. A History of Ancient Egypt. Wiley-Backwell. Chichester. [2]: (McDowell 2001) |
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Law courts with permanent officials, titles include: “Overseer of the court”, “Master of the Secrets of judgements in the court.”
[1]
Permanent, specialized officials with jurisdiction over criminal cases. The vizier held the top position in the law system, the "overseer of the six courts."
[2]
[1]: (Chadwick 2005, 139) [2]: (McDowell 2001) |
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Law courts with permanent officials, titles include: “Overseer of the court”, “Master of the Secrets of judgements in the court.”
[1]
Permanent, specialized officials with jurisdiction over criminal cases. The vizier held the top position in the law system, the "overseer of the six courts."
[2]
[1]: (Chadwick 2005, 139) [2]: (McDowell 2001) |
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[1]
We have to distinguish between three different court systems: a royal court, a Greek court and an Egyptian court. However, there are some changes to this set up over time in this period. None of these different court systems had specialized court buildings. [1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication) |
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not present Middle Kingdom. present Old Kingdom.
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inferred absent or unknown. In temples. there was a kind of court process but there may not have been a "court building"
[1]
In Late Period Egypt "Egyptian women (unlike Greeks) could act in transactions on their own behalf and without any guardian whatsoever; equally, women could come forward in law-courts totally unaided as plaintiffs or defendants. And it is quite evident that women were capable of independent economic activities regardless of marital status." [2] [1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication) [2]: (Allam 1990, 33) Allam, S. 1990. Women as Holders of Rights in Ancient Egypt (During the Late Period). Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol. 33, No. 1 (1990), pp. 1-34. BRILL |
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The "judicial [...] administration of the Chalukyas resembled that of their ancestors"
[1]
, the Chalukyas of Badami, for whom a number of different courts existed, each probably dedicated to a different unit of administration
[2]
.
[1]: H.V. Sreenivasa Murthy and R. Ramakrishnan, A History of Karnataka (1978), p. 91 [2]: D.P. Dikshit, Political History of the Chalukyas (1980), p. 230 |
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Different courts were used for the different law codes (which included the Muslim tashrii law and non-Muslim ghair tashrii law). Courts did not however extend into the more rural communities where village laws continued to be enforced.
[1]
"Cases involving non-Muslim subjects were decided according to their own particular religious laws by panchayats in the villages." [2] [1]: Habibullah, A. B. M. (1961). The foundation of Muslim rule in India. Central Book Depot, pp 272-4. [2]: (Ahmed 2011, 99) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. |
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|
The presence of a formal legal system is not discussed in the literature, and is therefore presumed absent.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Singh, U. (2008) A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Dorling Kindersley: Delhi. [2]: Avari, B. (2007) India: The Ancient Past: A history of the India sub-continent from c. 7,000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge: London and New York. |
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|
"Hindu tradition required the king to administer justice himself when he was present at the capital. If ill-health or pressure of other work prevented him from discharging this duty, the Chief Justice presided over the court at the capital, and decided cases with the help of jurors. The Supreme Court tried important local cases and also entertained appeals against the decisions of the lower courts in the moffusil. The evidence of the contemporary Smritis like Narada and Brihaspati shows that the judicial procedure was very well developed in the Gupta period."
[1]
"In addition to the official courts at the headquarters of districts and provinces, there existed a number of popular courts in our period. Guilds of traders and caravans had their own courts ..." [2] [1]: (Majumdar and Altekar 1986, 278) Anant Sadashiv Altekar. The Administrative Organisation. Ramesh Chandra Majumdar. Anant Sadashiv Altekar. 1986. Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 A.D. Motilal Banarsidass. Delhi. [2]: (Majumbar and Altekar 1946, 288) Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra. Altekar, Anant Sadashiv. 1986. Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 A.D. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. |
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|
"Rather than governors appointed by the kingdom, temples acted as the real centres of local resources and activities. Indeed, temples could rely on their millenary tradition, administrative structure, prestige, and ability to motivate the population. They therefore required and obtained from the kings (probably the weakest ones) a certain degree of autonomy and various exemptions from tributes and obligations (defined with the terms kidinnu in Kassite and zakûtu in Akkadian). They also had a certain degree of self-government for the administration of justice and of the cities’ internal affairs."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 471) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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|
"Rather than governors appointed by the kingdom, temples acted as the real centres of local resources and activities. Indeed, temples could rely on their millenary tradition, administrative structure, prestige, and ability to motivate the population. They therefore required and obtained from the kings (probably the weakest ones) a certain degree of autonomy and various exemptions from tributes and obligations (defined with the terms kidinnu in Kassite and zakûtu in Akkadian). They also had a certain degree of self-government for the administration of justice and of the cities’ internal affairs."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 471) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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|
Law courts mentioned here for Egypt:In Late Period Egypt "Egyptian women (unlike Greeks) could act in transactions on their own behalf and without any guardian whatsoever; equally, women could come forward in law-courts totally unaided as plaintiffs or defendants. And it is quite evident that women were capable of independent economic activities regardless of marital status."
[1]
[1]: (Allam 1990, 33) Allam, S. 1990. Women as Holders of Rights in Ancient Egypt (During the Late Period). Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol. 33, No. 1 (1990), pp. 1-34. BRILL |
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|
There were law courts in the main town of the districts and in every rural district
[1]
"The advent of the Parthians did not mark a break in the cultural history of the Greek cities, which retained their constitutions and magistrates, their schools, language, and law, long after the decline of Seleucid power." [2] [1]: Perikhanian, A., ‘Iranian Society and Law’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),vol. III, p.676. [2]: (Neusner 2008, 10) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. |
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|
There were law courts in the main town of the districts and in every rural district
[1]
"The advent of the Parthians did not mark a break in the cultural history of the Greek cities, which retained their constitutions and magistrates, their schools, language, and law, long after the decline of Seleucid power." [2] [1]: Perikhanian, A., ‘Iranian Society and Law’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983),vol. III, p.676. [2]: (Neusner 2008, 10) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. |
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|
In Bronze Age Latium "Most settlements were simple collections of huts with no evidence for internal differentiation in architecture or material culture than might suggest clear-cut divisions in society."
[1]
The earlier Copper Age is not thought to have been more complex than this.
[1]: G. Barker, Mediterranean Valley (1995), p. 156 |
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|
During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons."
[1]
Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas
[2]
(introduced by the 3rd Century BCE
[3]
) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom.
[1]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) [2]: (Berger 1968, 742) [3]: (Stearns 2001) |
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|
"The traditional Roman courts rendered justice within their respective jurisdictions. The provincial courts and governors toiled in Gaul, Pannonia, Dalmatia, indeed wherever Ostrogothic rule had peacefully supplanted the Roman emperors."
[1]
"provincial iudices heard Gothic cases and decided them on the basis of custom and the edicta of Theodoric and his successors."
[2]
Members of Senate appointed to act as judges in courts
[3]
In cases involving Goths and Romans, there were two judges, one Count of the Goth and one Roman judge
[4]
[1]: (Burns 1991, 171-172) [2]: (Burns 1991, 172) [3]: (Bradley 2005, 157) [4]: (Bradley 2005, 169) |
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|
Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a formal legal system during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons."
[1]
Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas
[2]
(introduced by the 3rd Century BCE
[3]
) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom.
[1]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) Mousourakis, G. 2007. A Legal History of Rome, Routledge. [2]: (Berger 1968, 742) Berger, A. 1968. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, Volume 43, American Philosophical Society. [3]: (Stearns 2001) Stearns, P. 2001. The Encyclopedia of World History. 6th Edition. James Clarke & Co Ltd. Cambridge. |
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|
"In the Courts of Justice the Podesta or one of his three assessors merely presided; the did not constitute the Court, which was composed of citizens."
[1]
[1]: (? 1902, 263) ?. Chapter VIII. Venice. A W Ward. G W Prothero. Stanley Leathes. eds. 1902. The Cambridge Modern History. Volume I. The Renaissance. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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|
Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a formal legal system during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
There is no evidence for a formal legal system during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
In Jenne-Jeno there is no evidence for a state bureaucracy, priesthood, military or a king.
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh, 31) McIntosh, Roderick J. Clustered Cities of the Middle Niger: Alternative Routes to Authority in Prehistory. in Anderson, David M. Rathbone, Richard. eds. 2000. Africa’s Urban Past. James Currey Ltd. Oxford. |
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|
Askia Muhammed Toure (r.1493-1529 CE) "appointed the first qadi of Jenne and extended Islamic judicial administration to other towns by establishing courts and appointing judges."
[1]
Kadi. Islamic law. Legal system independent of tribal chiefs. Customary law. Court to punish adultery. Tribunals. [2] [1]: (Lapidus 2012, 593) [2]: (Cissoko 1984, 196, 199-202) |
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|
This passage points to a lack of a bureaucratic justice system, which would include courts: "The power of chanyu, highest commanders and tribal chiefs at local places was supported by strict but simple traditional ways. As the Xiongnu laws were estimated by the Chinese chronicles, the Xiongnu’s punishments were generally “simple and easily realizable” and were mainly reduced to strokes, exile, and death penalty. It provided an opportunity to quickly resolve conflict situations at different levels of the hierarchical pyramid and to maintain the stability of the political system as a whole. It is no mere chance that for the Chinese, accustomed from childhood to an unwieldy and clumsy bureaucratic machine, the management system of the Xiongnu confederation seemed to be extremely simple: “management of the whole state is similar to that of one’s body” (Sima Qian 1959, ch. 110; Zhongyang 1958, 17)."
[1]
[1]: (Kradin 2011, 92) |
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|
"In former times the people of this country professed paganism until the year 469/1076-1077 when Yahya b. Abu Bakr the amir of Masufa made his appearance."
[1]
"In the king’s town and not far from his court of justice..."
[2]
[1]: (Al-Zuhri c1130-1155 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 24-25) [2]: (Al-Bakri 1068 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 15) |
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|
"In the king’s town and not far from his court of justice..."
[1]
"In the traditional empire, justice was inseparable from religion. It was a compensatory punishment ritually administered to one who offended against social order." [2] [1]: (Al-Bakri 1068 CE in Levtzion and Spaulding 2003, 15) [2]: (Diop 1987, 124) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
||||||
|
Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a formal legal system during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a formal legal system during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
No evidence for employment specialization characteristic of a developed urban society. Agricultural and herding would be typical occupations with "some internal differentiation ... in view of the sophistication of craft production documented at Mehrgarh.”
[1]
[1]: Agrawal, D. P. (2007) The Indus Civilization: An interdisciplinary perspective. Aryan Books International: New Delhi. |
||||||
|
No evidence has been found of state organisation at Mehrgarh.
[1]
[2]
An urban community of thousands suggests Mehrgarh likely had some degree of hierarchy for dispute resolution, perhaps a chief or collective decision making body but there is no evidence for any formal institutions or significant occupational specialization.
[1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 6 [2]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge |
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|
According to Coningham, while archaeologists such as Maurizio Tosi attempted to find evidence of courts and the rule of law, they have only found stamp seals that did not change over time or, by their concentration in a given place, indicate an authoritarian locus.
[1]
[1]: Coningham pers. comm. interview with Harvey Whitehouse and Christina Collins, Jan 2017 |
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|
According to a seventeenth-century Dutch source, "Besides [the Ayutthaya equivalent of a Supreme Court], there are still several courts of justice, as that of oya Berckelangh, who is attorney to the court and judge for all foreigners, further opraa Mathip Mamontry, who is chief of the court where all civil questions and all ordinary cases are pleaded and decided; oya Syserputh is permanent chief of the court where all secret and uncertain cases, criminal and civil are treated and decided by ordeal."
[1]
[1]: (Van Ravenswaay 1910, p. 70) |
||||||
|
[1]
There was a court of grievances called mazalim "a kind of appeals court".
[2]
Genizah documents refer to "court records".
[3]
A dispute concerning an a contested accusation that a Jewish merchant had abandoned a slave in the Red Sea port of Aydhab was held before the governor. The plaintiff was a slave-agent. [3] Were disputes between two Muslims also held before a governor. [1]: (Raymond 2000, 33) [2]: (Walker 2006, 77) Walker, Paul E. The Relationship Between Chief Qadi and Chief Da’i Under The Fatimids. Kramer, Gudrun. Schmidtke, Sabine. eds. 2006. Speaking for Islam: Religious Authorities in Muslim Societies. BRILL. [3]: (Perry 2014) Perry, Craig. 2014. The Daily Life of Slaves and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969-1250 CE. James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University. www.academia.edu/6893682/The_Daily_Life_of_Slaves_and_the_Global_Reach_of_Slavery_in_Medieval_Egypt_969-1250_CE |
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|
[1]
Level 2: Royal Courts [2] Level 1: the Council of Elders [1]: Bryce T. (2002) Life and Society in the Hittite World. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 38-39 [2]: Billie J. C.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies ; no. 7) Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 101-103 |
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|
"There is also disagreement about how Mongol customary law and Shari’ia law may have co-existed in Muslim territories. Successful coexistence seems to depend on the particular Khan."
[1]
[1]: 1. Beatrice Forbes Manz, ‘The Rule of the Infidels: The Mongols and the Islamic World’, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 3. The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 161. |
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|
During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons."
[1]
Also, a system of appeals developed.
[1]
Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas
[2]
(introduced by the 3rd Century BCE
[3]
) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom.
[1]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) [2]: (Berger 1968, 742) [3]: (Stearns 2001) |
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|
"The statute-book, the judiciary, and courts of law with their prisons and instruments of punishment, were unknown"
[1]
.
[1]: J. Monette, History of the discovery and settlement of the valley of the Mississippi, by the three great European powers, Spain, France, and Great Britain (1971 [c. 1846]), p. 191 |
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|
"There is also disagreement about how Mongol customary law and Shari’ia law may have co-existed in Muslim territories. Successful coexistence seems to depend on the particular Khan."
[1]
[1]: 1. Beatrice Forbes Manz, ‘The Rule of the Infidels: The Mongols and the Islamic World’, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 3. The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 161. |
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|
"Among the wealthier sedentary polities of Arabia there existed a more elaborate legal system with more of an institutional framework. A number of the cities of south Arabia had a council (mswd), and at each of the capital cities there was a supreme council where the king sat along with delegates from a certain number of tribal groups, representing the whole nation and issuing edicts on its behalf."
[1]
[1]: (Hoyland 2001, 124) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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|
This is based on the codes for the Rasulids as ’Sultan ’Amir also appears to have been emulating the high period of Rasulid power a hundred years earlier’
[1]
Education was "prerequisite to service in the civil administration as well as in the court system." [2] [1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 4 Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ [2]: (Stookey 1978, 114) Robert W Stookey. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Westview Press. Boulder. |
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|
“Due to the establishment of Islamic courts in the new regional centers, the number of persons who turned to the new courts grew, limiting the claims to hegemony of the Sinnar court.”
[1]
[1]: (Loimeier 2013, 150) Loimeier, Roman. 2013. Muslim Societies in Africa: A Historical Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/HJTAUHA9/collection |
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|
“Residents of Harar and its environs regard the city as an Islamic center of learning that ‘uniquely merges Sunni Islam within the city, Shari’a courts and a diverse Islamic education system based on Qurani schools and commentaries on the Quran.”
[1]
[1]: (Ben-Dror 2018, 15) Ben-Dror, Avishai. 2018. Emirate, Egyptian, Ethiopian: Colonial Experiences in Late Nineteenth-Century Harar. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/CHS87GBI/collection |
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|
“The king, as we have seen, was supreme judge, with power of life and death over his subjects. There was, however, a well organized hierarchy of courts. Village chiefs dealt only with civil disputes. Criminal cases were adjudicated by the provincial governor or the king’s councillors. At village level there was a court of first instance only; sanctions were limited to fines and short periods of imprisonment. Village chiefs supervised trials by ordeal.The provincial chief had wider powers. He could inflict the bastinado or impose lengthy periods of imprisonment. In all cases, however, the death penalty was the king’s prerogative.”
[1]
[1]: Lombard, J. (1976). The Kingdom of Dahomey. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 70–92). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 89. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/T6WTVSHZ/collection |
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|
The more important enigie conferred titles on their ‘palace’ officials and on their agents in the subordinate villages. They had rights to game and tribute and they held courts for the settlement of disputes between their subjects. Having some of the attributes of kingship, they were the focus of rituals patterned on, though less elaborate than, those which took place at the Oba’s palace.”
[1]
“Unlike the Oba’s Ishan, Yoruba, or Ibo vassals, the enigie of the Benin kingdom lacked the authority to put their subjects to death; all capital offences committed in their chiefdoms had to be referred to the Oba’s court.”
[2]
“From the point of view of his ‘subjects’ the fief-holder was their official sponsor through whom they could communicate requests, complaints, and disputes to the Oba. Benin villagers strongly maintain that their sponsors had no judicial authority over them, but, while they had no official courts, it is clear that they did often settle disputes without bringing them to the Oba’s notice.”
[3]
[1]: Bradbury, R. E. (1967). The Kingdom of Benin. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 1–35). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 9. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z8DJIKP8/collection [2]: Bradbury, R. E. (1967). The Kingdom of Benin. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 1–35). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 10. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z8DJIKP8/collection [3]: Bradbury, R. E. (1967). The Kingdom of Benin. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 1–35). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 11. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z8DJIKP8/collection |
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|
"As there existed no codified law, no formal tribunals, no structure for appealing judicial decisions, no separation between civil and criminal law, no distinction between a judicial session and a general audience, the king and the queen mother settled disputes according to their own wishes. When they felt they had been slighted or wronged, they summoned the culprits and sentenced them without further ado."
[1]
[1]: (Vansina 2004: 89-90) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. |
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|
"[I]n 1740 country councils (landraden) came into operation, comprising European and indigenous judges whose job was to settle disputes about land ownership. The customary law of Jaffna (Tesavalamai) had already been recorded in 1707, and in the 1760s, on the orders of Governor Falck, a start was made on recording Sinhalese landsrecht or customary law. Something similar could be seen happening simultaneously in Java (Cirebon), albeit on a much smaller scale. Although the judicial authorities could thus rely on specific customary law, they could also, as in other parts of the Dutch empire both at home and abroad, apply so-called Roman-Dutch law, a mixture of Roman law and the law of the Province of Holland."
[1]
[1]: (Emmer and Gommans 2020: 293) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AI9PPN7Q/collection. |
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|
Within Medieval Islamic law, “Effective organisation of the affairs of state, therefore, necessitated the recognition of jurisdictions other than that of the qādī. Although the scope itself of Sharī’a doctrine meant that certain types of cases fell altogether outside the province of the Sharī’a courts – litigation on fiscal matters, for example, was normally brought before the Master of the Treasury – it was the system of procedure and evidence to which the Sharī’a courts were tied which was chiefly responsible for the curtailment of their jurisdiction.”
[1]
[1]: (Coulson 1964, 127) Coulson, Noel. 1964. A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Coulson/titleCreatorYear/items/S4S75T39/item-list |
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|
As a Medieval Muslim sultanate, Islamic law and Sharia courts would have likely been used to regulate society. Within Medieval Islamic law, “Effective organisation of the affairs of state, therefore, necessitated the recognition of jurisdictions other than that of the qādī. Although the scope itself of Sharī’a doctrine meant that certain types of cases fell altogether outside the province of the Sharī’a courts – litigation on fiscal matters, for example, was normally brought before the Master of the Treasury – it was the system of procedure and evidence to which the Sharī’a courts were tied which was chiefly responsible for the curtailment of their jurisdiction.”
[1]
[1]: (Coulson 1964, 127) Coulson, Noel. 1964. A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/S4S75T39/collection |
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|
Within Medieval Islamic law, “Effective organisation of the affairs of state, therefore, necessitated the recognition of jurisdictions other than that of the qādī. Although the scope itself of Sharī’a doctrine meant that certain types of cases fell altogether outside the province of the Sharī’a courts – litigation on fiscal matters, for example, was normally brought before the Master of the Treasury – it was the system of procedure and evidence to which the Sharī’a courts were tied which was chiefly responsible for the curtailment of their jurisdiction.”
[1]
[1]: (Coulson 1964, 127) Coulson, Noel. 1964. A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Coulson/titleCreatorYear/items/S4S75T39/item-list |
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|
The following quotes suggest that Islamic courts were likely present. “With a long tradition of trading connections to the Arabian Peninsula, the Somalis were converted to Islam at an early date and remain staunch Muslims (Sunnis, of the Sha afi School of Law).”
[1]
“The kadi administering Islamic law was at this time a Hawiye Somali whose predecessors, from about 1670, had been sayyids from Arabia.”
[2]
[1]: (Lewis 2008, 1-2) Lewis, Ioan M. 2008. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York, Columbia University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Understanding%20Somalia/titleCreatorYear/items/7J425GTZ/item-list [2]: (Lewis 2002, 33) Lewis, Ioan M. 2002. A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/KHB7VSJK/collection |
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|
"The precise use of the Islamic calendar and of Arabic script and language are strong evidence of the presence of an Islamic scholarly elite. This literate elite is represented by the faqīh Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥasan, “ qāḍī al-quḍā (lit. “cadi of the cadis”) of Šawah” whose death occurred in 1255. The title “cadi of the cadis” refers to the judge at the head of the judiciary of a state or of a city, and therefore presupposes a sophisticated judicial hierarchy."
[1]
[1]: (Chekroun and Hirsch 2020: 94-95) Seshat url: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/TA84VGHX/item-list |
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Within Medieval Islamic law, “Effective organisation of the affairs of state, therefore, necessitated the recognition of jurisdictions other than that of the qādī. Although the scope itself of Sharī’a doctrine meant that certain types of cases fell altogether outside the province of the Sharī’a courts – litigation on fiscal matters, for example, was normally brought before the Master of the Treasury – it was the system of procedure and evidence to which the Sharī’a courts were tied which was chiefly responsible for the curtailment of their jurisdiction.”
[1]
[1]: (Coulson 1964, 127) Coulson, Noel. 1964. A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Coulson/titleCreatorYear/items/S4S75T39/item-list |
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The following quote suggests that Islamic courts were likely present. “With a long tradition of trading connections to the Arabian Peninsula, the Somalis were converted to Islam at an early date and remain staunch Muslims (Sunnis, of the Sha afi School of Law).”
[1]
[1]: (Lewis 2008, 1-2) Lewis, Ioan M. 2008. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York, Columbia University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Understanding%20Somalia/titleCreatorYear/items/7J425GTZ/item-list |
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Oyo Mesi is the Oyo Empire term for the broader Yoruba role of Igbimo: “The authority of the chiefs of state and the Igbimo extended to the performance of judicial functions. Their authority in this realm straddled the dimension of Directiveness and the exaction of compliance to judgments that they handed down in capital cases from members of the society. In this capacity, they constituted the Supreme Court in the central polity with the sole authority to try capital cases and other ‘indictable offences such as murder, treason, burglary, arson, unlawful wounding, manslaughter, incest… ’ (Fadipe, 1970: 209), as well as disputes between occupants of authority positions and appeals that emanated from lower judicial bodies in the constituent polities. The authority to grant pardons of all types belonged to the chiefs of state in its entirety. They and members of the Igbimo handled regular cases in regular sessions of the Igbimo during the course of the week while special sessions were convened when the occasion called for them (Fadipe, 1970). The fact that executions and jail terms were exacted in the capital by designated institutions in the state bureaucracy (Bascom, 1955; Fadipe, 1970; Akintoye, 1971) indicated the presence of some measure of regulated regimentation in the Yoruba authority patterns (Ejiogu, 2004).”
[1]
[1]: Ejiogu, EC. ‘State Building in the Niger Basin in the Common Era and Beyond, 1000–Mid 1800s: The Case of Yorubaland’. Journal of Asian and African Studies vol.46, no.6 (1 December 2011): 600. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2H2CJNHP/collection |
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Following reference indicates a lot of structure (both in physical and administrative terms) which might imply a court building, but it’s not 100% clear: “In Idah, the capital of the Igala kingdom as well as in the districts, disputes among individuals and groups were settled before family heads. Those between one family group and another were settled by heads of both group and family who sought to reach compromise for the purpose of peace and stability. In the districts, the district rulers referred to as the Onu exercised both judicial and executive powers; the village chiefs popularly called Omadachi and Gago handled divorce cases, land disputes and several other minor cases but cases of murder and treason were reserved exclusively for Attah’s attention. Attah’s court (Ogbede) was the highest court located in front of Ede market which day’s cases were heard publicly. Attah was the president of the court but because of many engagements, such power was delegated to one of the senior eunuchs called Ogbe who acted as president of the court. Ogbe acted as president of the court took final decisions on minor and non complicated cases while serious ones would be referred to the Attah for final decisions. Available records reveal that Ochalla Angna and Olimamu Attah both Islamic clerics served as court scribes (what is today known as court clerks) and records of proceedings were written and kept in Arabic. This system was and is very effective as few cases are expected to be reported to the police. Acrimony and bitterness which could arise from cases reported to the police were reduced to the barest minimum.”
[1]
[1]: Jacob, Audu. “Pre-Colonial Political Administration in the North Central Nigeria: a Study of the Igala Political Kingdom.” European Scientific Journal, vol. 10, no. 19, 2014, pp. 392–402: 399. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5AN8R7UW/collection |
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“Also, in the fourteenth century Al-Qalqashandi mentioned judges, magistrates and jurists, with reference to the king of Borno, Borno being located in the same vicinity as it is now, in north east Nigeria, although in those times Nigeria did not exist as a state.”
[1]
[1]: Dalgleish, D. (2005). Pre-Colonial Criminal Justice In West Africa: Eurocentric Thought Versus Africentric Evidence. African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, 1(1), 55–69: 62. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/NKVJZI32/collection |
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The following quote suggests that Islamic courts were likely present. “The tokolor revolution resulted in the replacement of one elite by another, and in the creation of a society within which the Sharia, the Muslim law, was enforced.”
[1]
[1]: (Klein 1972, 429) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection |
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The following quote suggests that Islamic courts were likely present in the Empire of Great Fulo. “In Mauritania and Senegambia, there was a network of rural schools, at which the Koran and certain important works of technology and law were studied. The more learned marabouts studied at different schools. Some of these schools seem to have played an important revolutionary role. Thus, according to Futa Toro traditions, all the major leaders of the 1776 torodbe revolt studied at Pir Saniokhor in Cayor.”
[1]
[1]: (Klein 1972, 428) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection |
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The following reconstruction of small communities consisting of extended families based in autonomous homesteads suggests minimal social diffrentiation. ”For the first 400 years of the settlement’s history, Kirikongo was a single economically generalized social group (Figure 6). The occupants were self-sufficient farmers who cultivated grains and herded livestock, smelted and forged iron, opportunistically hunted, lived in puddled earthen structures with pounded clay floors, and fished in the seasonal drainages. [...] Since Kirikongo did not grow (at least not significantly) for over 400 years, it is likely that extra-community fissioning continually occurred to contribute to regional population growth, and it is also likely that Kirikongo itself was the result of budding from a previous homestead. However, with the small scale of settlement, the inhabitants of individual homesteads must have interacted with a wider community for social and demographic reasons. [...] It may be that generalized single-kin homesteads like Kirikongo were the societal model for a post-LSA expansion of farming peoples along the Nakambe (White Volta) and Mouhoun (Black Volta) River basins. A homestead settlement pattern would fit well with the transitional nature of early sedentary life, where societies are shifting from generalized reciprocity to more restricted and formalized group membership, and single-kin communities like Kirikongo’s house (Mound 4) would be roughly the size of a band.”
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 27, 32) |
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The quote below suggests that legal affairs were informal matters for local leaders rather than carried out through Sharia law. “As power devolved to local leaders, customary rather than Sharia’atic law dominated political relations at the local level. We saw in the previous section how the saints of Somali tradition contributed to the evolution of xeer (customary law) in the various communities where they settled. They mediated disputes, helped assess blood-wealth (diya) payments, and assisted at rituals of reconciliation. Such mediation was particularly critical in the evolving Rahanwiin confederations, which typically consisted of lineages of diverse genealogical origins and perhaps different marriage and inheritance customs.
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 130) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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The following quote suggest that there was not a formal legal code with courts, professional judges and lawyers, but instead there was a group of local arbitrators for various communal disputes. “Every gafo (aggregate of houses) had its clan elder, called duke niho, father of the people, who was a functionary only in the most general sense of the word, acting as an arbitrator in disputes and as a link between his gafo and that of the rashe showo. In fact, all of the positions lower than rashe showo were engaged primarily in matters of justice. The duke niho was considered to be a nali areto or ari gecho, ‘one who knows’. The tatikisho and the gudo were also in the category of ‘those who know,’ and they were asked to arbitrate and to sit in judgement in all cases affecting a gafo or subdistrict. Usually the duke niho was asked his opinion, but a binding judgement was left to the tatikisho. If this judgement was not acceptable to either of the parties, they could appeal to the gudo. Up to this level decisions could involve the division of a piece of land or compensation for damages. The rashe showo represented the next level of appeal, although the right to arrest people or to lock them in irons was reserved for the worabi rasho.”
[1]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 292) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection |
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“Let us note that in the Igbo traditional setting, the oracle held executive, legislative, and judicial powers.”
[1]
[1]: Innocent, Rev. (2020). A Critical Study on the Ibini Ukpabi (Arochukwu Long Juju) Oracle and its Implications on the International Relations During the 20th Century. London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, 20(10): 6. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZXZGZSM3/collection |
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The following quote suggests the emergence of social differentiation in this period, but little appears to be understood about this phenomenon apart from the appearance of specialised smiths and the formation of senior and cadet social segments. "During Yellow II, the inhabitants of Mound 4 began a process that eventually led to centralization of iron production, as described in detail above. Iron ore extraction involves profound digging in the earth, the realm of spirits, and historically in Bwa society the practice is reserved solely for specialized smiths, who also excavate burials (see discussions below). The mid first millennium A.D. therefore witnessed a transformation from redundant social and economic roles for houses to specialization in at least one craft activity. While houses were still highly independent, even producing their own pottery, a formalized village structure was likely present with both cadet and senior social segments, founded upon common descent with a common ancestor."
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 28) |
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"Contexts that could shed light on the dynamics of social structure and hierarchies in the metropolis, such as the royal burial site of Oyo monarchs and the residences of the elite population, have not been investigated. The mapping of the palace structures has not been followed by systematic excavations (Soper, 1992); and questions of the economy, military system, and ideology of the empire have not been addressed archaeologically, although their general patterns are known from historical studies (e.g, Johnson, 1921; Law, 1977)."
[1]
Regarding this period, however, one of the historical studies mentioned in this quote also notes: "Of the earliestperiod of Oyo history, before the sixteenth century, very little is known."
[2]
Law does not then go on to provide specific information directly relevant to this variable.
[1]: (Ogundiran 2005: 151-152) [2]: (Law 1977: 33) |
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"In the late Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods, several inscriptions record decisions in legal cases, most commonly disputes over land."
[1]
- where were trials held for legal cases?
"Court" for trials existed in Spring and Autumn period (reference not specific to Chu). [2] [1]: (Lewis 2009, 228) Lewis, Mark Edward. 2009. The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han. Harvard University Press. [2]: (Brooks and Brooks) Brooks, E, Bruce. Brooks, A, Taeko. 2015. The Emergence of China: From Confucius to the Empire. Warring States Project. |
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"With the development of the state machine of the Zhou dynasty, under the leadership of the monarch, the central judicial organizations headed by "Si Kou" (the minister of justice) and "Shi Shi" (the official in charge of criminal affairs) were established, and the local judicial organizations, named "Xiang Shi", "Sui Shi", "Xian Shi", "Fang Shi", and "Ya Shi", had also been set up to deal with the judicial affairs."
[1]
"In the late Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods, several inscriptions record decisions in legal cases, most commonly disputes over land." [2] - where were trials held for legal cases? [1]: (Zhang 2014, 155) Zhang, Jinfan. 2014. The Tradition and Modern Transition of Chinese Law. Springer Science & Business Media. [2]: (Lewis 2009, 228) Lewis, Mark Edward. 2009. The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han. Harvard University Press. |
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"The Mongols apparently introduced greater leniency into the Chinese legal system. The number of capital crimes amounted to 135, less than one-half the number mandated in the Sung dynasty codes. Criminals could, following Mongolian practice, avoid punishment by paying a sum to the government. Khubilai could grant amnesties, and he did so, even to rebels or political enemies. Officials of the provincial or central government routinely reviewed local judicial decisions on serious crimes in order to prevent abuses of the rights of the accused. Because there have not been any careful studies of this code in operation, it is difficult to tell whether these statutory reforms translated into a more lenient and flexible system than under the earlier Chinese dynasties. Yet the legal ideals embodied in this code supported by Khubilai and the Mongols did indeed appear less harsh than earlier Chinese ones."
[1]
[1]: (Rossabi, M. 1994. The reign of Khubilai khan. In Franke, H. and D. Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 710-1368 pp. 414-489. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 453-454) |
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[1]
We have to distinguish between three different court systems: a royal court, a Greek court and an Egyptian court. However, there are some changes to this set up over time in this period. None of these different court systems had specialized court buildings. [1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication) |
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Courts present in Europe and the colonies. “In 1511, a tribunal of independent royal judges was constituted in the colony of Espanola to try cases appealed from the town magistrates and the governor.”
[1]
[2]
[1]: (Cunningham 1919, 25.) Cunningham, Charles Henry. 1919. The Audiencia in the Spanish Colonies As illustrated by the Audiencia of Manila (1583-1800). [2]: (Escobar 2016, 260) Escobar, Jesus. 2016. "Architecture in the Age of the Spanish Habsburgs." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75(3): 258-261. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F2BFHI82 |
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"The common norms of law that prevailed in the kingdom may be studied in the first juridicial records of Aksum: in the four laws from the Safra (Drewes, p. 73)."
[1]
"Later Ethiopian law followed the Fetha Nagast, ’The Law of the Kings’ written in Arabic by a Copt in the mid-thirteenth century, and translated into Ge’ez perhaps in the middle of the fifteenth century (Tzadua 1968), but inscriptions like that of Safra show that there were earlier legal codes in use (Drewes 1962)." [2] "high-quality grave goods, have been interpreted as those of ’middle-class’ Aksumites ... It might be expected that such a class would include government officials, scribes, priests of temple or church, middle-ranking members of the army, merchants, and perhaps some of the more skilled craftsmen. Amongst such a class there would probably be some foreigners, permitted to live in Ethiopia because of their special skills." [3] [1]: (Kobishanov 1981, 386) Y M. Kobishanov. Aksum: political system, economics and culture, first to fourth century. Muḥammad Jamal al-Din Mokhtar. ed. 1981. UNESCO General History of Africa. Volume II. Heinemann. UNESCO. California. [2]: (Munro-Hay 1991, 252) Stuart C Munro-Hay. 1991. Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh University Press. [3]: (Connah 2016, 141) Graham Connah. 2016. African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective. Third Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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Code for Early Carolingian
There were definitely court buildings, but these were probably used for other purposes. |
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Legal procedure known from Formularies and case records. Courts. Used Roman tradition of written evidence. Law not homogeneous "each person was entitled to be judged according to the law of his or her place of birth or ethnic group." Royal Court was the highest court, settled disputes between magnates.
[1]
[1]: (Fouracre in Wood ed. 1998, 286-289) |
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Legal procedure known from Formularies and case records. Courts. Used Roman tradition of written evidence. Law not homogeneous "each person was entitled to be judged according to the law of his or her place of birth or ethnic group." Royal Court was the highest court, settled disputes between magnates.
[1]
[1]: (Fouracre in Wood ed. 1998, 286-289) |
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Temple complex based government. "Temple complexes, such as the temple of the goddess Inanna at Eana in Uruk (3200 BC), were large-scale enterprises, dealing in considerable quantities of goods and labor."
[1]
A "legal system" may have been present. Were there specialist courts or was this among the activities of the temple complexes? "the Sumerian civilisation which flourished before 3500 BC. This was an advanced civilisation building cities and supporting the people with irrigation systems, a legal system, administration, and even a postal service. Writing developed and counting was based on a sexagesimal system, that is to say base 60." [2] [1]: (Joseph 2011, 135) Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton University Press. [2]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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The house of the Ohene usually doubled as court: ’The place of trial is usually the house of the Ohene, and is open to everybody. It has been observed by Cruickshank, among others, that in addition to these official members, any person of respectability in the community has the right to attend the court of the ruler and councillors. Causes of great public importance are heard in the open air, and in the presence of as many as it pleases to attend. On such occasions, any one-even the most ordinary youth-will offer his opinion or make suggestion with an equal [Page 34] chance of its being as favourably entertained on its merits as if it proceeded from the most experienced sage, for in the multitude of people is the king’s honour, and there is safety in the multitude of counsellors. To prevent this license being abused, to the interruption of business by the interposition of crude and absurd opinions, a sufficient check is supplied in the general ridicule with which they are received, the offensive forwardness of the fool is jeered at and reprobated in no measured terms, while approbation and loud expressions of applause reward the prudent adviser. Mr. Justice Macleod, in Amocoo v. Duker, * correctly stated, decisions of these tribunals should not be lightly set aside. And in land cases especially, judges ought to be guided by what was laid down by the court in Asraidu v. Dadzie, † namely, give the same judgment that a native court judging honestly and in accordance with native law and custom ought to give.’
[1]
[1]: Sarbah, John Mensah 1968. “Fanti National Constitution: A Short Treatise On The Constitution And Government Of The Fanti, Asanti, And Other Akan Tribes Of West Africa Together With A Brief Account Of The Discovery Of The Gold Coast By Portuguese Navigators, A Short Narration Of Early English Voyages, And A Study Of The Rise Of British Gold Coast Jurisdiction, Etc., Etc.”, 33p |
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The following seems to indicate the presence of courts: ’The initial processes applicable to civil, oath, accused or criminal summonses have already been described. In order to meet the clerical service required for these forms, there is attached to the important Tribunals a Registrar’s office where summonses and all the other processes are taken. The Registrar has charge of the cause list and the Record Books. In Akim Abuakwa the tribunal sits for five days in the week, Wednesday being excluded by the “Awukudae” custom, and Sunday by the British connexion and other Christian influences. Sittings of Tribunal last for about 6 to 10 working hours each day, and the Omanhene, as responsible judge, is always expected to be present throughout the day’s sitting. We have already described the constitution of the Tribunal as consisting of the Omanhene, his Linguists, his four principal Executive Chiefs, the Queen-Mother, the non-Stool owning Elders and Councillors (including in the latter term the Christian Elders and Presbyters). The Tribunal is summoned by the “Kantamanto” or “woni-mini” drum ( q.v.) and on the Omanhene taking his seat at the third beating of the drum, the Registrar proceeds to deal with his cause list.’
[1]
This remains in need of confirmation.
[1]: Danquah, J. B. (Joseph Boakye), 1928: 97; Literacy Database |
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Legal disputes were tried in the agora (the central gathering place) of the city.
Crete owes much of its fame in Classical Greece to its internal organization and its cultivation of the laws. This prestige is partly due to mythological traditions and Minoan memories and survivals. The laws that, according to legend, Minos received every nine years, and the figure of Rhadamanthys the just judge, bear witness to a dim recollection of an earlier rule of law. From as early as the 7th century BCE, Crete had engaged in important legislative innovations, some of which can be reconstructed from the later laws of Gortyn. The famous legal inscription of Gortyn is not an isolated example. Fragments of laws dating from the 7th to the mid-5th century survive in many cities. The reasons for this legislative activity - an activity that includes both the recording of older laws and the introduction of new ones - were the major problems concerning land ownership, inheritance, small landowners’ dependence on creditors as a result of the gradual spread of a monetary economy, and the presence of individuals who lacked political rights but engaged in important financial activities as traders, craftsmen and freelance workers. There was very little interest in reform of the existing regime: the handful of laws on civic issues were intended to limit the arbitrary actions and immunity of the Kosmoi. |
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Local disputes were settled in informal village councils: ‘Among the Garos most disputes arise over the issues of property, inheritance, and domestic quarrels within the family. Such problems are to a large extent settled by the MAHARI (lineage) of the offended and the offender. A new situation develops when someone’s cattle cause damage to another’s crops. Under such situation the NOKMA (village headman) acts as an intermediary only. If he fails to settle the dispute, the matter can go to the civil court of the district council.’
[1]
‘The Garo system of trial of cases beings with earth-taking. The complainant and the accused both swear by taking a lump of soil in their hands in front of the gathering with a promise that they will state the truth and nothing but the truth. It is believed by some Garos that this is the origin of the word “A’chik”, others believed that they have been called the A’chiks as they inhabited the high undulating land.’
[2]
Only during the colonial period were higher-level judicial authorities introduced: ‘Many of the disputes of the Garos decided in their village Panchayats. When a man has some complaints against another he reports them to the Nokma or the village-head. If the nature of the complaints is simple, the Nokma in a meeting of the few leading persons of the village, decides the dispute; but if the nature of the complaints is complicated and not easy of solution the Nokma reports the matter to the Laskar. The Laskar is a very important and influential man in the Garo Hills District. The hills areas are divided into some elekas and each of such elekas is placed under a Laskar for convenient collection of the house tax as well as for deciding the disputes of small nature locally. The Laskar need not essentially be a literate man, worldly prudence is enough for the management of his eleka. In practice a Laskar wields immense influence in his eleka.’
[3]
‘The cases which are brought to the courts are serious and quite entangled ones, otherwise these could be decided amicably at the mahari or chra level in the village. When one does have a dispute involving an alien village, one does not get any support from any member of that village since they do not belong to the same clan. The village authority decides the case and gives judgement according to the customary law.’
[4]
The same is true for the office of laskar: ‘The laskar had his jurisdiction over many villages and was the agent of the British Administration. This system still continues at the district level. The laskar used to bring the cases to the subordinate District Council Court from the Village Court. From the District Council Court the appeals could be preferred to the High Court at Gauhati.’
[5]
‘When the Britishers took over the administration of this district, one witnessed an imposition of hierarchy of new political and administrative units in the district over the traditional democratic village set-up. The British Government, being actuated with the desire to have effective control over the villages and to facilitate the collection of revenues and house tax introduced the office of laskar with limited police, civil and criminal powers. Accordingly there was a laskar over a circle of villages; each having jurisdiction covering ten or twelve of villages. Although, the villagers were left to settle all disputes through the nokma and the village courts, they had right to appeal to the court of laskars against the decisions of the village councils.’
[6]
It seems that the Zamindars did not push for legal formalization.
[1]: Roy, Sankar Kumar: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Garo [2]: Sangma, Mihir N. 1995. “Garos: The Name, Meanings, And Its Origin”, 38 [3]: Choudhury, Bhupendranath 1958. “Some Cultural And Linguistic Aspects Of The Garos”, 40 [4]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 164 [5]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 42 [6]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 52 |
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royal courts were known
[1]
"The court procedure entailed appearing before a judge or judges, who may have been paid for hearing the case, and hiring a bailiff, whose task it was to schedule the trial and assemble the parties and witnesses at the right time and place, for which he too received a fee. A scribe was needed to draw up a summary of the case and finding. No doubt he received a fee as well." [2] "Later evidence suggests that disputes over property or social status were adjudicated in the first instance at the local level, using neighborhood, temple, or community authorities or notables, the last called "elders" or "mayors" in Akkadian times ..." [3] "There was also a formal court procedure before judges, but this cost money, so was presumably resorted to only by people with means. Judges were important dignitaries, entitled to enjoy the income from good-sized estates given them by the king’s officials; the act of judging was a divine attribute, associated with profound knowledge, probity, fairness, and wisdom, rather than with specific legal training." [3] [1]: Barjamović 2012, 131 [2]: (Foster 2016, 39) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. [3]: (Foster 2016, 38) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. |
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Temple complex based government. "Temple complexes, such as the temple of the goddess Inanna at Eana in Uruk (3200 BC), were large-scale enterprises, dealing in considerable quantities of goods and labor."
[1]
A "legal system" may have been present. Were there specialist courts or was this among the activities of the temple complexes? "the Sumerian civilisation which flourished before 3500 BC. This was an advanced civilisation building cities and supporting the people with irrigation systems, a legal system, administration, and even a postal service. Writing developed and counting was based on a sexagesimal system, that is to say base 60." [2] [1]: (Joseph 2011, 135) Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton University Press. [2]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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"Not obeying an order to appear in court was regarded as an obstruction of justice (azismand)".
[1]
The highest legal official was the mowbedan mowbed, the top religious leader within the Zoroastrian church [1] , whose precise relationship with the sahr dadwaran dadwar (the judge of the judges of the State, the head of the state judges) [1] is unknown. The mowbed were priest judges. [2] Judges known as rads were among other city officials including tax officials who "represented the central government and were responsible to provincial administrators". [3] The king could "pass judgement in criminal cases, as we may conclude from the Acts of the Christian Martyrs (see Wiessner 1967)." [2] [1]: (Shaki 2011) Shaki, Mansour. 2011. CLASS SYSTEM iii. Encylopaedia Iranica. Vol. V. Fasc. 6. pp. 652-658. Site accessed 21 September 2016: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/class-system-iii [2]: (Macuch 2012) Macuch, Maria. 2016. Judicial and Legal Systems iii. Sasanian Legal System. Vol. XV. Fasc. 2. pp. 181-196. Site accessed: 21 September 2016: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/judicial-and-legal-systems-iii-sasanian-legal-system [3]: (Lambton 2011) Lambton, Ann K S. 2011. CITIES iii. Administration and Social Organization. Encyclopedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cities-iii |
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Temple complex based government. "Temple complexes, such as the temple of the goddess Inanna at Eana in Uruk (3200 BC), were large-scale enterprises, dealing in considerable quantities of goods and labor."
[1]
A "legal system" was present. Were there specialist courts or was this among the activities of the temple complexes? "the Sumerian civilisation which flourished before 3500 BC. This was an advanced civilisation building cities and supporting the people with irrigation systems, a legal system, administration, and even a postal service. Writing developed and counting was based on a sexagesimal system, that is to say base 60." [2] [1]: (Joseph 2011, 135) Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton University Press. [2]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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“The Constitution of 1857 guaranteed all individuals certain rights if accused of a crime. Importantly court fees were abolished, thus opening up the legal process to the poor… Courts no longer recorded race in legal documents and individuals were tried on the basis of their deeds or misdeeds and not on their membership of a particular ethnic or social group”
[1]
[1]: (Sloan 2011: 303-304) Sloan, Kathryn A. 2011. “The Penal Code of 1871: From to Civil Control of Everyday Life,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 302–15. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N74WVZX2 |
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Public court known as placita. "Pierre Toubert definitively analysed the structure of the Roman placitum up to 1080, taking the story on in less detail up to 1200, in a hundred pages of Les structures du Latium médiéval."
[1]
"This sort of assembly politics was typical of early medieval Europe, and was regularized by the Carolingians; it was doubtless indeed the Carolingians who extended it to Rome, for Roman practices are so close to those of Carolingian northern Italy. By the eleventh century, such placita were rare in the Frankish world, but south of the Alps they were regular in most regions until the second half of the century. Rome fits this Italian pattern, then, although, as already noted, there are indications that placita were held even more often in Rome than they were in each county further north. It was clearly easy for Roman judges and aristocrats to come together frequently, and the more often they did so the more solid their political aggregation." [2] It is unclear when it developed, but by long-standing custom, popes held a council in Rome itself during Lent to settle any ecclesiastical business (land disputes, lawsuits over rights, quarrels between bishops and their parish churches, etc.). In the late eleventh century, this system was expanded with another seasonal council held in November for the same purpose. [3] [1]: (Wickham 2015, 386-387) Wickham, C. 2015. Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900-1150. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Wickham 2015, 388-389) Wickham, C. 2015. Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900-1150. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: Southern, 145-47 |
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Public court known as placita. "Pierre Toubert definitively analysed the structure of the Roman placitum up to 1080, taking the story on in less detail up to 1200, in a hundred pages of Les structures du Latium médiéval."
[1]
"This sort of assembly politics was typical of early medieval Europe, and was regularized by the Carolingians; it was doubtless indeed the Carolingians who extended it to Rome, for Roman practices are so close to those of Carolingian northern Italy. By the eleventh century, such placita were rare in the Frankish world, but south of the Alps they were regular in most regions until the second half of the century. Rome fits this Italian pattern, then, although, as already noted, there are indications that placita were held even more often in Rome than they were in each county further north. It was clearly easy for Roman judges and aristocrats to come together frequently, and the more often they did so the more solid their political aggregation." [2] In 1357 CE papal legate Cardinal Albornoz introduced the Constitutions of the Holy Mother Church (Constitutiones aegidianae). This public law code remained effective until Napoleon. The laws regulated the Papal-commune relationship, and codified the status of papal courts, which had been competing with rival authorities in the states. [3] Appellate courts. [4] Pope Gregory IX’s decretal Ille humani generis" established a more formalized inquisitorial process in 1231. [5] [1]: (Wickham 2015, 386-387) Wickham, C. 2015. Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900-1150. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Wickham 2015, 388-389) Wickham, C. 2015. Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900-1150. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: (Kleinhenz 2004, 854) [4]: (Kleinhenz 2004, 853) [5]: Reprinted in Peters, 196 |
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"The criminal law owed much to the reforms of two past lawgivers, the proto-emperor, L. Cornelius Sulla (dictator and consul, 81-80 BC), and the emperor Augustus. Sulla established a number of courts (quaestiones) to try various criminal offences, such as murder and poisoning (or use of charms), or forgery; in the statutes he would have defined the crime and the penalty. In other areas of criminal law, the framework supplied for later developments by the Leges Iuliae, the legislation of Augustus, predominates, with whole sections of the imperial law-codes devoted to imperial enactments relevant to the Julian laws on adulteries, corrupt solicitation (ambitus), extortion (repetundae), treason (maiestas) and on violence)."
[1]
"As jury-courts fell out of use under the Early Empire, to be replaced by hearings before a single magistrate or judge, the courts established by the criminal statutes ceased to operate, but the statues themselves remained, as they specified offence and punishment. People prosecuted for murder, poisoning, or other relevant offences were still prosecuted under Sulla’s law and liable to its penalties."
[1]
Note (DH): the quaestiones were a sort of ad-hoc special tribunal - it refers to the section of law that the case was under, not an actual building, so ’court’ is a bit of a stretch on the translation in the quote. Trials were still held basically wherever there was space -- bassilicae, fora, etc.
During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons." [2] Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas [3] (introduced by the 3rd Century BCE [4] ) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom. [1]: (Harries 2001, 12) Harries, Jill. 2001. Law and Empire in Late Antiquity. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [2]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) [3]: (Berger 1968, 742) [4]: (Stearns 2001) |
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During the Roman Dominate administration of justice was "thoroughly bureaucratized" and "regular courts, special courts were established to deal with particular matters and categories of persons."
[1]
Before this time there was no specialised court building. Courts could be held in the basilicas
[2]
(introduced by the 3rd Century BCE
[3]
) where a provincial governor could an hold audience or in the Roman forum. Basilicas were multi-purpose buildings a place for banking and money-changing and town hall activities. The forum was a multi-purpose building which had existed since the Roman Kingdom.
[1]: (Mousourakis 2007, 161) [2]: (Berger 1968, 742) [3]: (Stearns 2001) |
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’In 1232, the Council of State promulgated the Joei Code (Joei shikimoku), a 51-article legal code that articulated Hojo judicial and legislative practices and the conduct of the military government in administering the country. In 1249, a judicial court (hikitsuke) was established to further refine the legal process.’
[1]
‘Thus, the three tokusei agents, together with the Muto and Otomo families and Adachi Morimune, came to form a three-unit judicial structure in which each unit was responsible for judging cases from three provinces each. This court was housed in a building in Hakata,21 and this office served as the governmental organ responsible for enforcing tokusei measures as well as delivering judicial decisions.’
[2]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.5. [2]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.149 |
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’One major feature of the ’imperial state’ was its maintenance of a large court and a corps of officials. Angkor has a sizeable bureaucracy staffed by officials of many sorts. Like so much about the Khmer kingdom in ancient times, the structure of government and the categories of the civil service are known to us through temple inscriptions, which frequently name various types of official or local dignitary in listing those present to witness the formal demarcation of land bestowed upon religious foundations; they mention a variety of grades and titles, some of them obscure. The khlon rajakarya was responsible for the administration of ’royal work’, probably corvee among other things. The tamrvac was an inspector; the officials who swore allegiance to Suryavarman I had this title, for example. The gunadosadarsin (assessor of virtues and defects) was concerned with temple property. A variety of functionaries were called khlon (inspector) and had responsibilities in various areas such as grain, temple dues, management of religious foundations and several aspects of court proceedings. Revenue was usually in kind, being paid in grain, but some special districts paid in other commodities such as honey and wax. There is evidence that some of the categories in which officials were placed were not types of professional specialisation but divisions of the government service placed under the patronage of particular chiefs belonging to the royal family, a system that was indeed known in later centuries. Some of the groups of dignitaries named in named in the inscriptions, again, appear to have been the bearers of hereditary privileges in the royal household; the term varna, for example, designates any of a number of orders of dignity, which have such official functions as religious teachers, performers of rites, door guardians, garden keepers, palace servants, bearers of flywhisks, and artists.’
[1]
’As in the rest of the Indic world, the Angkor state and empire were government by rules laid down in the Code of Manu, a great compendium of Brahmanic law probably composed around the 4th century BC. [...] Every judicial act was theoretically inscribed on stone as well as on plaques of gold, silver or copper. The Khmer king was the defender of the law and order in Cambodia. His law courts, present on every administrative level right down tot he village, instituted criminal proceedings against transgressors and guaranteed the integrity of landholdings and the settling of boundary problems. Not even religious institutions such as temples were immune, sine they as well as private individuals could be sued over land.’
[2]
[1]: (Mabbett and Chandler 1995, pp.166-167) [2]: (Coe 2003, p. 144) |
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There were two higher courts - The King’s Bench and the Common Pleas – and lower courts throughout the territory. .
[1]
[1]: (Prestwich 2005: 60-61) Prestwich, Michael. 2005. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XTBKFDCI |
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This passage points to a lack of a bureaucratic justice system, which would include courts: "The power of chanyu, highest commanders and tribal chiefs at local places was supported by strict but simple traditional ways. As the Xiongnu laws were estimated by the Chinese chronicles, the Xiongnu’s punishments were generally “simple and easily realizable” and were mainly reduced to strokes, exile, and death penalty. It provided an opportunity to quickly resolve conflict situations at different levels of the hierarchical pyramid and to maintain the stability of the political system as a whole. It is no mere chance that for the Chinese, accustomed from childhood to an unwieldy and clumsy bureaucratic machine, the management system of the Xiongnu confederation seemed to be extremely simple: “management of the whole state is similar to that of one’s body” (Sima Qian 1959, ch. 110; Zhongyang 1958, 17)."
[1]
[1]: (Kradin 2011, 92) |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for a formal legal system during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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A formal legal system, as associated buildings and lawyers, is assumed absent as the only evidence for writing during this period is from the carved stone slab (Monument 3) at San José Mogote
[1]
and the largest buildings were used as temples and elite residences.
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p130 [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p126-34 |
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Inferred from the fact that courts existed in Ayutthaya (as suggested, among other things, by the following seventeenth-century mention: "Besides [the Ayutthaya equivalent of a Supreme Court], there are still several courts of justice, as that of oya Berckelangh, who is attorney to the court and judge for all foreigners, further opraa Mathip Mamontry, who is chief of the court where all civil questions and all ordinary cases are pleaded and decided; oya Syserputh is permanent chief of the court where all secret and uncertain cases, criminal and civil are treated and decided by ordeal"
[1]
), and the fact that the legal reforms of Rama I built on preceding legal traditions
[2]
.
[1]: (Van Ravenswaay 1910, p. 70) [2]: (Wyatt 1984, pp. 146-147) |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Courts. However: "There is no text explaining in so many words what courts existed in Constantinople at any one time." [2] One "court of the Hippodrome" is documented, for instance. [1] [1]: (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Macrides 1994, 60) Macrides R J, in Laiou A E eds. 1994. Law and Society in Byzantium, 9th-12th Centuries. Dumbarton Oaks. |
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"Court of the Hippodrome", "Court of the Velum" very well documented - see the entry on "Judges" in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, for instance.
[1]
[1]
"There is no text explaining in so many words what courts existed in Constantinople at any one time." [2] [1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Personal Communication. [2]: (Macrides 1994, 60) Macrides R J, in Laiou A E eds. 1994. Law and Society in Byzantium, 9th-12th Centuries. Dumbarton Oaks. |
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Council houses combined judicial, executive, and legislative with ceremonial functions, but were also residential: ’In 1818, Timothy Alden (1827:54-55) described a similar council house at Tonawanda. It was fifty feet long and twenty wide. On each side of it, longitudinally is a platform, a little more than one foot high and four feet wide, covered with furs, which furnishes a convenient place for sitting, lounging, and sleeping. A rail across the centre separates the males from the females, who are constant attendants and listen, with silence, diligence, and interest, to whatever is delivered in council. Over the platform is a kind of galley, five or six feet from the floor, which is loaded with peltry, corn, implements of hunting, and a variety of other articles. At each end of the building is a door, and near each door, within, was the council fire. . . . Over each fire several large kettles of soup were hanging and boiling. The smoke was conveyed away through apertures in the roof and did not annoy. The chiefs and others, as many as could be accommodated, in their appropriate grotesque habiliments, were seated on the platform, smoking calumets, of various forms, sizes, and materials, several of which were tendered to me in token of friendship. Profound silence pervaded the crowded assembly.’
[1]
’Crimes and offences were so unfrequent under their social system, that the Iroquois can scarcely be said to have had a criminal code. Yet there were certain misdemeanors which fell under the judicial cognizance of the sachems, and were punished by them in proportion to their magnitude. Witchcraft was punishable with death. Any person could take the life of a witch when discovered in the act. If this was not done, a council was called, and the witch arraigned before it, in the presence of the accuser. A full confession, with a promise of amendment, secured a discharge. But if the accusation was denied, witnesses were called and examined concerning the circumstances of the case; and if they established the charge to the satisfaction of the council, which they rarely failed to do, condemnation followed, with a sentence of death. The witch was then delivered over to such executioners as volunteered for the purpose, and by them was led away to punishment. After the decision of the council, the relatives of the witch gave him up to his doom without a murmur.’
[2]
[1]: Tooker, Elisabeth 1970. “Iroquois Ceremonial Of Midwinter”, 19 [2]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. I”, 321 |
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There was the royal law court (dvorský soud), which the king presided over, and the land courts (zemský soud) which dealt with all other matters: “If a dispute regarding land held from the king arose, the case went before the royal law court (dvorský soud) and it was exempt from the land court (zemský soud). The king’s authority with respect to both the royal law and court and the land law and court arose from two very different positions of authority. Klassen characterizes the king’s position in royal law as ‘sovereign and absolute ruler,’ perhaps exaggerating his position here to contrast it to his position in the land law. Klassen writes, ‘In the land government, on the other hand, the king was only first among equals.’ Furthermore, the ‘land court met four times a year in Prague and its meetings merged with the land diet especially during the reign of Wenceslas [Vaclav] iv who called no special diet.’ As a result, the ‘highest power was the land court (zemský soud).’ Because ‘[a]ll free landholders, knights and nobles were under the jurisdiction of the land court and of the justices in the rural districts,’ the land law governed the powerful group that owned their land free.”
[1]
“The nobility could be arraigned only before a Land court of the larger kind; due to the growing number of disputes, a new smaller Land court was established alongside these in 1383 which dealt with less serious cases, and for the most part became the forum for the legal problems of the lower nobility. The courts kept systematic records of their sessions (Land rolls); these however were destroyed in the fire of 1541 in Prague.”
[2]
[1]: (Grant 2014: 34) Grant, Jeanne E. 2014. For the Common Good: The Bohemian Land Law and the Beginning of the Hussite Revolution, East Central and Eastern in the Middle Ages, 450–1450. Leiden; Boston: Brill. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GCJGUZZZ [2]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 142) Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich, Tůma. 2009. A History of the Czech Lands. University of Chicago Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4NAX9KBJ |
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“The third historiography of governance has remained largely separate from the first two and has been virtually ignored by those who profess an interest in early modern government per se: the late sixteenth-century growth in business in virtually all the law courts, both criminal and civil, hardly seems to have been regarded as a dimension of governance at all…That the business of the courts did in fact peak in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is now well established among historians of criminal prosecution and of civil litigation.”
[1]
“The ubiquity of the law required an elaborate regime of courts and procedures to support it. The king’s courts included the Star Chamber, founded upon the royal prerogative and endowed with sweeping powers; Chancery, whose task it was to apply the rules of equity, modifying the rigour of the common law as it was administered in King’s (or Queen’s) Bench and the Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Exchequer dealt with matters involving the king’s revenue. Most of their business was civil, and revolved around the perennial bones of contention: land, inheritance, and contract. Criminal matters also came before the central courts, but most of the case-load involving serious crimes came before the justices when they rode circuit to the Assizes, held regularly throughout the provinces. The legal system was formidably complex. There were other courts beyond the king’s: some privileged individuals held special judicial powers from the Crown; the bishop of Durham, for example, enjoyed a virtually independent jurisdiction. In Scotland judicial authority was hereditary in many places. The church had its own system of courts, dealing primarily with theological, moral, and marital causes: cases of, for example, heresy, fornication, and separations. There were admiralty courts, dealing in matters concerning wrecks, prizes, and piracy. Operating under the Roman-inspired rules of the civil law, the church and admiralty courts were deeply unpopular with those who practised the common law. Common lawyers, indeed, resented any competing jurisdiction – including Star Chamber and Chancery. There was also an elaborate system of manorial courts, controlled by manor lords, performing many of the routine legal chores of daily life: regulating tenancies, confirming leases and inheritances, and enforcing local by-laws.”
[2]
“In addition to the courts of Chancery and Exchequer, there were in London common law courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas, the former for cases, both civil and criminal, in which the Crown was involved, the latter for civil suits, especially those involving property, contract, or debt, between subjects. Common law was the body of law that had evolved out of judicial precedent and custom. It was uncodified, as opposed to statute law, which was created by acts passed by Parliament and approved by the king. As we have seen, Parliament consisted of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, both of which met at Westminster. Every male peer had the right to sit in the Lords, as did bishops and, before the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, abbots of great monasteries.”
[3]
[1]: (Hindle 2002: 13) Hindle, Steve. 2002. The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550–1640 (London: Palgrave https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/GVIZDIC9 [2]: (Stater 2002: 40) Stater, Victor. 2002. The Political History of Tudor and Stuart England. London; New York: Routledge, 2002. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WWPXBUHX [3]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 49) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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Ealdormen in the shires presided over a bi-annual court which dealt with criminal, civil and ecclesiastical matters, and also declared new laws or dooms. From the eleventh century, ealdormen began to preside over several shires and so a subordinate, the shire-reeve (sherriff), took over court duties in the individual shires.
[1]
♠ Professional Lawyers ♣ inferred absent ♥ No reference to lawyer-type positions in the sources consulted. Rather, ealdormen, port-reeves or sheriffs presided over court matters and plaintiff and defendants represented themselves.
[2]
[1]: (Roberts et al 2014: 30) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3 [2]: (Roberts et al 2014: 31) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3 |
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The Court of Pleas for civil suits and the King or Queen’s bench for cases concerning revenue and some civil matters.
[1]
[1]: (Chambers and Chambers 1847: 275) Chambers, Robert and Chambers, William. eds. 1847. History and Present State the British Empire. London: W.R.Chambers. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/K77JRGEL |
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“An emerging judiciary system supported the new constitution and subsequent legislation. Established informally in 1829, district courts were made part of the constitutional system in 1840, drawing heavily upon American legal practice and, to some extent, the common law of Great Britain. To this rudimentary system was added a Judiciary Department in 1847 with three levels of courts. District courts, staffed with Hawaiian speaking magistrates, were established in twenty six districts. Not a court of record, the district court was the primary jurisdiction for the newly defined laborer - the Hawaiian commoner. All misdemeanors and civil matters involving a value of one hundred dollars or less came to this court. Circuit courts and a supreme court completed the judiciary system. These legal developments officially ended the traditional structure of Hawaiian authority. The chiefs thus became an upper class without special power. Their function in society was left in limbo and their legal functions had been usurped by a code of laws and authorities responsible to a central government in which the chiefs had no ascribed role.”
[1]
[1]: (Beechert 1985: 25) Beechert, Edward D. 1985. Working in Hawaii: A Labour History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/338XH58H |
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Ealdormen in the shires presided over a bi-annual court which dealt with criminal, civil and ecclesiastical matters, and also declared new laws or dooms. From the eleventh century, ealdormen began to preside over several shires and so a subordinate, the shire-reeve (sherriff), took over court duties in the individual shires.
[1]
♠ Professional Lawyers ♣ inferred absent ♥ No reference to lawyer-type positions in the sources consulted. Rather, ealdormen, port-reeves or sheriffs presided over court matters and plaintiff and defendants represented themselves.
[2]
[1]: (Roberts et al 2014: 30) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3 [2]: (Roberts et al 2014: 31) Roberts, Clayton, Roberts, F. David, and Bisson, Douglas. 2014. ‘Anglo-Saxon England: 450–1066’, in A History of England, Volume 1, 6th ed. Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/P2IHD9U3 |
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"Almost all the inhabitants of pre-Islamic Arabia were members of a tribe, that is, a mutual aid group bound together by a notion of kinship. As one pre-Islamic poet astutely observed (‘Amr ibn Qami‘a 8), ‘a man’s tribe are his claws [with which he fends off enemies] and his props [which support him]’. Unlike a state, tribes have no specialised institutions of law and order, so a person’s life, honour and goods were protected by his relatives, who were obliged to assist him in trouble and to avenge or seek compensation for him if he was wronged. ‘When fighting comes, your kinsman alone is near; your true friend your kinsman is, who answers your call for aid with good will, when deeply drenched in bloodshed are sword and spear’ (H. am. 225)."
[1]
"So tribal law was customary law, deter- mined by ancient practice. It is therefore inherently conservative; ‘We found our fathers on a path and we follow in their footsteps’ was the reply of most Meccans to the Prophet Muhammad’s new message (Quran 43.22, 24). And it is echoed by pre-Islamic Arab poets: ‘We follow the ways of our forefathers, those who kindled wars and were faithful to the ties of kinship’ (‘Abid 20). It could only be updated either by such aforementioned paragons of tribal virtue, who won the approval of all, or by the consensus of all full members of the community meeting together." [2] "Among the wealthier sedentary polities of Arabia there existed a more elaborate legal system with more of an institutional framework. A number of the cities of south Arabia had a council (mswd), and at each of the capital cities there was a supreme council where the king sat along with delegates from a certain number of tribal groups, representing the whole nation and issuing edicts on its behalf. Such an edict might begin as follows: ‘Thus have ordered and directed and decreed Shahr Yagill Yuhargib, the son of Hawfa‘amm, the king of the Qatabanians, and the Qatabanians, the council, having its full complement. . . . ’ (RES 3566). In this particular text it would appear that Shahr Yagill had to fight to maintain his position, for he goes on to complain that ‘some people from the council and community of landowners determined and enforced their decisions by swearing oaths between themselves in that temple in their very self-willed and loutish manner without the sanction of [me] their lord’." [3] [1]: (Hoyland 2001, 113) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list [2]: (Hoyland 2001, 121-122) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list [3]: (Hoyland 2001, 124) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list |
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Inferred from continuity between immediately preceding and succeeding polities.
"Both in terms of ideology and organization, therefore, Theoderic sought and largely maintained the institutions and administrative procedures of the later western imperial administration as he found them. The same can be said of Rome’s laws. Several letters within the collection stress the need to preserve the rule of Roman law, demand respect for it, reflect upon its fundamental correctness, or even cite it. "[...] "Despite the fact that the justice system was by its nature an imperfect one, biased in favour of the wealthy and well connected, it was nevertheless a legitimate system. Where its integrity came under threat was in the actions of the judges and court officials responsible for putting otherwise abstract rules into effect. As in the later empire, the courts were administered by the central administration through provincial governors and their staff, as well as officers of the local municipalities, including the Roman defensores, duumviri, quinquennales, and the ubiquitous decurions, who had the authority to deal with civil and minor criminal matters. Also at the local level was the bishop’s court (episcopalis audientia), which had jurisdiction over cases involving ecclesiastic officials. But it is clear from our sources that this was a much simplified and watered-down version wherein the bulk of cases were dealt with by the provincial governor irrespective of the type of case or considerations of a person’s ethnicity or status. "Outside the courtroom there existed several less formal (but by no means less-legal) methods of dispute settlement. Arbitration, or other forms of dispute resolution such as mediation, negotiation, or self-help, offered an important alternative to formal litigation, which could be an expensive, unpredictable, and even risky endeavour. Unfortunately, the law took little notice of these, and what references we have in the Variae to such informal methods of dispute resolution reveal no more than one stage in what was, in most cases, a lengthy and protracted process." [1] [1]: (Lafferty 2016: 148, 162) Lafferty, S. The Law. In Arnold, Bjornlie and Sessa (eds) A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy pp. 147-172. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VQ8MC72F/item-list |
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