Saga - 2007, Page 159

Skrift ir sem til heyr›u innra svi› inu mátti ekki gera op in ber ar og
heim ild ir um flær eru flar af lei› andi litl ar sem eng ar. Var› veitt ir
skrifta for mál ar gefa vís bend ing ar um form legu hli› ina en sök um
fless a› text ar ís lensku hóm il íu bók ar inn ar eru eldri en skipt ing
kirkj unn ar í ytra og innra svi› ver› ur a› ætla a› hún sé ekki not hæf
heim ild um op in ber ar skrift ir sí› mi› alda, fla› er fleg ar skrift var
tek in hjá bisk upi og af lausn veitt frá hinu meira banni.
Abstract
lára magnúsardótt i r
S IN GOES TO COURT
The legal validity of penitentials and relationship between sin and crime in the
ecclesiastical penal code and justice system of the late Middle Ages
The article focuses on the formal treatment of sin by the ecclesiastical justice sys-
tem of the late Middle Ages. Sin cannot be investigated to any purpose without
determining how breaches of law were handled in the ecclesiastical justice sys-
tem. Since both sin and breaches of law would lead to excommunication, the
question is what distinguished sin from a breach of law, and minor excommuni-
cation from major. Although the distinction between major and minor excom-
munication mattered greatly in the twofold justice system and although sin and
crime were distinguished through their definitions, it is argued here that there
were important connections between the two poles. These connections shed light
on the conduct of proceedings and matter greatly for scholars when interpreting
documents from late medieval courts. This is further explained here by dis-
cussing the instructions that the judiciary was supposed to follow.
Penitentials had no legal validity in the late Middle Ages, because their sub-
ject matter was cardinal sin, which was considered to be a matter of the internal
forum. Crimes, in contrast, were judged by law in the external forum, with the
concept of „sin“ being used by most documents to denote „cardinal sin“. The dif-
ference between sin and crime was that sin was defined in relation to an indi-
vidual’s decision based on her/his free will, whereas crime was defined as the
act that had been committed. Both types of violation required penance, which
was, however, essentially a matter of the internal forum. The external and inter-
nal fora of the ecclesiastical justice system were therefore related, and were fur-
thermore related in that those who refused to do penance for cardinal sins there-
by broke the law and were sentenced according to terms of the external forum.
syndin fyrir dómstóla 159
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