Question about medieval law

[Jon_Dahl]

My question is about the social status vs. the truth.

In a standard quase-medieval setting, a citizen of no particular social standing overhears a noble saying something incriminating (not as bad as treason or murder, but still something really bad). This law-abiding citizen single-handedly captures the noble and brings him to justice, telling what he has overheard. Noble refutes citizen's claims and claims that the citizen is lying or mistaken. When/if asked to submit to magical interrogation, nobleman refuses based on honor.

This may not be enough information to draw conclusions, but please ask questions.

But my question is: How should this situation should be resolved?

 

[Kzach]

Firstly I'll state that I'm no expert on medieval law so take my input with a grain of salt.

IMO, the situation is somewhat ridiculous. Firstly, a citizen (I'm assuming a peasant) would have to be in a very unique position to be able to take the noble into custody in the first place. It would require that the noble not be armed and not have any guards and be cowardly enough not to fight the citizen. This is all very unlikely.

But let's say that somehow he's managed to capture and subdue the noble. The next challenge would be getting the noble 'to justice'. Any effort to do so is incredibly risky on the citizen's part. The noble could basically call on any person of any training or knowledge, to cut the citizen down. And few would balk at the citizen's claims of 'justice', especially when the noble can just offer a reward for cutting the citizen's head off.

But again, let's assume he's negotiated these two HUGE obstacles and brought the noble 'to justice'. The justice then says, "By what right do you lay hands upon a noble of the realm?" And the citizen promptly gets his head cut off. Justice be damned. The nobility maintained control primarily through corruption, ie. it mattered more who your friends were than who were your enemies. And few arbiters of justice are going to take the word of anyone of lower status, let alone some rag-tag peasant, against the noble. Hell, the arbiter of justice probably wouldn't even hear the citizen out before stepping in and cutting his throat for daring to lay a hand on his new best friend, the noble.

But, again, let's say he took the noble to some uppity, self-righteous, lawful stupid paladin, and the paladin heard the citizen out and demanded a lawful investigation which, if the facts were determined to warrant it, would lead to a trial.

The paladin is a dead man. Period. Right or wrong, god or no god, the realm will go to war to get the noble back and punish the paladin for treason against the realm and cut off his head and put it on a pike. The citizen's body would just never be found as he wouldn't even get that honour. Hell, even if half the realm HATES the noble's guts and WANTS him dead, they'll go to war to get him back solely on the basis that some upstart citizen and pompous little paladin thought they could defy the status quo. The people in power would punish both of them, and wholesale slaughter just as an example, any who stood with them. And quite frankly, nobody would stand with them for just that reason.

But... I'm guessing that your real question is that if all of the above was irrelevant, and the situation had actually gotten to the stage of a trial, in a world where nobility could be put on the stand like this at all (which again is so unlikely it's not funny), then I would consider two things:

1) In a setting that uses more modern sensibilities of right and wrong, as it seems this situation demands, then I'd probably go so far as to say that the law would require the nobility to submit to magical testing, after all, if all the layers of protection against this sort of thing happening have already been stripped away, then logically there isn't going to be a hail-mary for someone at the last minute.

2) If you want to have it that the nobility have a level of power similar to what they had in history, despite having gone this far, then I would say that no matter what, the nobility would've had it written in law that they have this hail mary for just such a situation, and nothing short of damning evidence (in which case you don't need the testimony) can trump it.

 

[Jhaelen]

This law-abiding citizen single-handedly captures the noble and brings him to justice, telling what he has overheard. Noble refutes citizen's claims and claims that the citizen is lying or mistaken.

Imho (and I'm certainly not knowledgable in actual medieval law), the 'law-abiding' citizen will be lucky to get out of this alive. The noble's word is as good as law; a commoner's word counts for nothing.

Capturing a noble is a serious offence no matter the reason. Even accusing a noble poses a serious risk to a commoner. What the commoner should have done is to seek out another noble who is known to be not a friend of the noble he overheard and tell him about it.

That's about the only way I could see the noble get into any trouble.

Nobles tend to get away even with serious crimes. Murder? No problem at all, just pay the realtives some blood-money. A commoner's life is particularly cheap. And serfs are the noble's property, anway, so it's not even a crime to kill one.

 

[S'mon]

Roman Civil Law, English Common Law, or Germanic customary Law?

Edit: I can tell you that according to modern English common Law (derived ultimately from Germanic customary Law), the power of Citizen's Arrest applies when a crime is in progress/has just occurred. Overhearing incriminating evidence does not give the citizen a power of arrest. I'm pretty sure that Roman Civil Law does not give such a power either.

In all the cases I can think of, the citizen has no legal power of arrest here, and has committed the crime of false imprisonment. So the citizen goes to jail. Depending on circumstances the Law court may investigate the allegation against the noble, but if the only evidence is "I heard him say X" they are unlikely to convict.

Note that according to English common Law at least, this is technically the same whether the arrestee is a noble or a commoner.

 

[S'mon]

Imho (and I'm certainly not knowledgable in actual medieval law), the 'law-abiding' citizen will be lucky to get out of this alive. The noble's word is as good as law; a commoner's word counts for nothing.

Capturing a noble is a serious offence no matter the reason. Even accusing a noble poses a serious risk to a commoner. What the commoner should have done is to seek out another noble who is known to be not a friend of the noble he overheard and tell him about it.

That's about the only way I could see the noble get into any trouble.

Nobles tend to get away even with serious crimes. Murder? No problem at all, just pay the realtives some blood-money. A commoner's life is particularly cheap. And serfs are the noble's property, anway, so it's not even a crime to kill one.

This might be the case de facto in some times and places, but was never the case de jure (IAAL).

Edit: Although Germanic customary Law did allow for blood money payments, the amount of the blood money depends on the status of the victim. The court would act more like a modern arbitrator and set a reasonable blood money payment aimed at avoiding a blood feud between the families of the victim & the killer.

 

[Kzach]

Note that according to English common Law at least, this is technically the same whether the arrestee is a noble or a commoner.

Is that medieval law or modern law?

I'd actually be quite surprised if there was even an entry on the rights of the common person in medieval law, let alone an entry giving them any power over a noble. Aside from your general crime and punishment laws, most medieval law (to my knowledge, which as I mentioned earlier is limited) revolved around the nobility. It was my understanding that it wasn't until commoners rose up in rebellions against the feudal system that they had any sort of complex law systems that revolved around them, rather than leaving them as an afterthought.

 

[S'mon]

Is that medieval law or modern law?

I'd actually be quite surprised if there was even an entry on the rights of the common person in medieval law, let alone an entry giving them any power over a noble. Aside from your general crime and punishment laws, most medieval law (to my knowledge, which as I mentioned earlier is limited) revolved around the nobility. It was my understanding that it wasn't until commoners rose up in rebellions against the feudal system that they had any sort of complex law systems that revolved around them, rather than leaving them as an afterthought.

Reality is surprising. There are lots of English medieval cases (13c+) with serfs suing their lords for alleged failure to meet the lords' legal obligations! And it was nothing to do with "rebellions against the feudal system" - the serfs were asserting their rights under English common Law within the feudal system. The medieval feudal system is a system of mutual obligations, and was seen as such by everyone. "Peasants' revolts" were usually (a) Assertions of breach of duties under the Law, not a revolt against the Law* and (b) were actually revolts by armed yeomen and artisans, not by actual peasants or serfs.

*Although Watt Tyler & co did sack the Inns of Court, AIR.

Edit: The French Revolution & then Marxism have resulted in a very distorted view of actual medieval history, IMO; projecting 18th & 19th century class conflicts back into the medieval era.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

First off I really doubt that in practice in a real medieval setting the commoner could get away with arresting the noble in the first place irrespective of the laws applying in the land.

If it came to a trial the noble would demand trial by combat and the commoner would have to act as the champion against unless rich enough to hire a champion. That would be pretty much the end of it there anyway.

That said, legally nobles did not have a right to murder their own serfs but good luck to the serfs trying to do anything about it.
The best chance they would have of stopping him would be to get a delegation to some senior nobleman with ties to the court or the liege of the nobleman in question.

 

[Dioltach]

Don't forget that a 'commoner' is not necessarily a serf: even feudal societies there were people of wealth and substance who were not nobles.

Anyway, I'd say the commoner's best bet in the situation described would be to find a sponsor: somebody with enough authority to be taken seriously and preferably a grudge against the noble. I'm thinking a rival nobleman, a guild, the clergy.

Of course depending on the sponsor, the commoner might still end up face down in the river. But at least his complaint will have been heard.

 

[Tonguez]

Don't forget that a 'commoner' is not necessarily a serf: even feudal societies there were people of wealth and substance who were not nobles.

Very good point this. The commoner could be a civic alderman, a wealthy merchant, a Valet/Butler, a man at arms, the Kings game keeper or even a baillif.

In order for the scenario to work (afterall the citizen singlehandedly captured the noble) they would have to have a lot of skill and thus most likely a degree of status.