[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Ben P.]

[Randall Moffett]

Ben,

I am still highly suspect of those numbers. I have never seen anything close to that high in late medieval England. I will say my looking in German civic records is limited but those I have seen make me wonder where in Germany these stats and when they came from.

RPM

[Johan Gemvik]

Yes Jean-Carle, you make an excellent point! I guess you're referring at least in part to the Nazi institution driven Holocaust of WWII?

I was thinking more in the terms of the more recent Rwanda masacre of the Tutsi.

This is a very compelling and interesting discussion. Please all continue.

[Douglas S]

If these German towns in around 1300 were without the police protection that we take for granted, you can be sure there'd be more killings.

In fact, looking at the original article, it seems that they are counting indicted homicides, and the rates are similar for other countries as well.

From our knowledge of medieval culture, we may assume that plenty of killings would have gone without investigation or without suspects, and some were accounted self-defense out of hand.

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

[Randall Moffett]

Douglas,

While we no doubt take our police for granted it is a mistake to think they did not have policing forces. In most places in Europe there was a very organized system of law enforcement. Since I am most familiar with England here is a brief run down.

King>

Non-Royal lands
Nobles and knights> county to local level in jurisdiction and authority>Town leaders (mayor and aldermen) and other rural leadership, knights and such would be required to supervise this in their localities for example> usually bailiffs or the likes and under sherifs would also be around as royal counties were not defined to noble land ownership so some royal presence as well.

Royal lands

County level> Sheriffs> coroners and Bailiffs

Towns> Mayor and Aldermen (if town was free of the county their own sheriff)>Bailiffs and underbailiffs

There was some overlap but this is not per se a bad thing.

In English towns there are daily and nightly watches 365 days of the year. MArkets were especially monitored. Usually the areas were in wards or other districts with 2-4 bailiffs or more patrolling them. Outside town walls there is a similar structure in place but with a huge are under them, though possibly with the same number or so people. Often the watch was armed, more so at night. In times of danger or concern (invasion, local conflict or riots) it could be doubled or more and would without doubt be armed and armoured.

Murders were certainly investigated. We have loads of coroners inquests from much of High and Late Medieval England for example.

In Southampton, where I know the medieval records about as well as one could, there are decades without a murder from 1300-1500. Don't get me wrong there are decades where murder is much more common but there is a hard line between townsmen attacking visiting sailors and attacking foreigners are tied to war or piracy and such as we are not getting both sides of the conflict. Now the town of Southampton had legal control from the new forest to Portsmouth until Henry VII, not a small area. This is a fairly large amount of area and full of the kind of people that traditionally cause fights in towns (sailors). Now when there are murders they have a system in place that takes care of it and investigates. Many times it is conflict between sailors and townsmen, likely involving drunkenness. But the idea that they were just lining up bodies and not trying to prevent it or solve them. They clearly had a very well organized, perhaps the best that had ever existed to that date, and they did what they could to keep life peaceful and productive.

As I have said before I am not really very sure this article is all that accurate. Having read it on multiple occasions and the articles written from the other sides I think these numbers and sources are too loose and, at least for the medieval period, which is my academic background- I cannot say much for the other periods, lacking in depth of understanding of the system in place as well as available sources there. In the end clearly there is a decline in murders but it in reality is not nearly as large as is often being portrayed.

Now it is indeed likely the period was more violent than our own. They had much more open and less direct conflict going on internally and externally. This would increase the numbers of murders in any place to our locations that largely do not have these issues and concerns. It does need to be put in perspective. To their time it might have been one of the more peaceful periods of history in that area. We also have had lapses, american west for example and such that show how external issues change stability.


RPM

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

Pray tell, are there any primary sources written on this, or rather relating to some of the points people have made here?