Introduction (Élisabeth Schmit & Aurélien Peter)
DOI 10.4000/156ok
First paragraph:
Ce dossier se situe au croisement de deux manières d’aborder et d’écrire l’histoire de la justice1 : celle, d’une part, qui s’intéresse aux manifestations rituelles du processus judiciaire ; et celle, d’autre part, qui traite des enjeux et des pouvoirs de l’écrit dans l’action de la justice. En repartant de la métaphore théâtrale, c’est-à-dire en envisageant la scène judiciaire comme cadre spatio-temporel du déploiement du rituel, il s’agit d’en étudier précisément les modalités d’enregistrement, pour mieux comprendre comment l’écrit participe du caractère manifeste des justices médiévales et modernes – dans leur diversité. À l’intersection entre rituel et écrit judiciaires, il y a bien sûr la procédure, entendue à la fois comme la succession des étapes conduisant à l’exécution d’une décision de justice, et comme l’ensemble des règles qui encadrent chacune de ces étapes. Faire l’histoire des modalités d’enregistrement du rituel judiciaire implique dès lors d’expliciter à la fois les rapports entre rituel et procédure, et entre procédure et écrit. Les contributions qui suivent témoignent de l’intérêt, pour les historiennes et historiens de la justice, d’articuler ces deux approches, chacune ayant fait l’objet d’une historiographie féconde.
Ad arbitrium dicte nostre curie. Les équilibres de la jurisprudence du Parlement criminel au travers de l’enregistrement des peines infamantes (xive siècle) (Isabelle d'Artagnan)
DOI 10.4000/156ol
Abstract:
This article analyzes recording strategies shaping parliamentary judicial precedents through seventy 14th century rulings involving the pillory or honorable amend. Clerks selected cases, merged uses of degrading punishments, and erased discrepancies to portray a moderately balanced justice. Three principles guided sentencing: the extent of the harm caused, the status of the parties involved, and the course of the judicial process. The criminal registers appear as a selective memory which guides the magistrates’ practice more than it records it.
(D)écrire la procédure judiciaire criminelle à Dijon à la fin du Moyen Âge (Rudi Beaulant)
DOI 10.4000/156oo
Abstract:
The excellent preservation of sources relating to Dijon’s municipal justice system provides insight into the various stages of criminal proceedings in the late Middle Ages. Thanks to the diversity of the documents, it is possible to trace the rationalization of the content of the registers and notebooks from the second half of the 14th century to the beginning of the 16th century, which became ordinary judicial writings used in particular to facilitate the work of judges and prosecutors and, above all, to attest to the good judicial governance of the municipality, which also involved the political ritual of the inauguration of officers.
Pratiques de l’écrit et procédures de la justice ordinaire dans les villes allemandes à la fin du Moyen Âge (Dominique Adrian)
DOI 10.4000/156om
Abstract:
A trial before the council of Kempten (now in Bavaria) in 1486 offers a firsthand insight into the procedure followed in the urban courts of the late Middle Ages, for which the normative texts give only a limited account. The considerable weight of witness testimony and the complexity of the procedures used to gather it show the concern to establish an objective truth, without resorting to irrational evidence (purgatory oaths, etc.). By drafting this lengthy charter at the request of the litigants, the council aimed to guarantee the legal solidity of its decision, even in the face of the imperial courts then in full expansion.
Rendre des comptes au xvie siècle : les pratiques juridictionnelles de la Chambre des comptes de Paris dans les comptabilités urbaines de Touraine (Rémi Demoen)
DOI 10.4000/156on
Abstract:
During the Ancient Regime, the chambre des Comtes de Paris was a sovereign court whose task was to audit the accounts of all the agents who had to manage the king's funds. The ritualised practice of this exercise of control is based on a jurisdictional power that, while well researched for the late Middle Ages, remains dependent on documentary losses for the 16th century. Municipal accounts from this period offer a valuable alternative. Because they preserve traces of the judicial ritual in the Chamber as much as they are an integral part of it, these documents make it possible to propose a renewed study.
De petits bois de justice Les bandeaux gravés de Jean-Michel Papillon dans le rituel judiciaire à la fin de l’Ancien Régime (Mathias Boussemart)
DOI 10.4000/156op
Abstract:
Among the engravers producing illustrated headpieces at the end of the Ancien Régime, the renowned Jean-Michel Papillon (1698-1776) worked regularly for the judicial world, notably creating numerous headpieces related to parliamentary activity. The study of his Recueil des Papillons, held at the BNF, makes it possible to analyze in detail these seemingly innocuous images, which reveal the wide diffusion of an iconographic language shared by the judicial world of the Ancien Régime, through the miniature staging of its ritual.
Varia
De la difficulté de devenir fonctionnaire de l’État français dans un protectorat : l’exemple des contrôleurs civils au Maroc (Quentin Lohou)
DOI 10.4000/156oq
Abstract:
By establishing a “protector” state and a “protected” state, the French protectorate in Morocco recognizes the exercise of two sovereignties over the Cherifian Empire. This regime gave rise to some original legal situations, as illustrated by the hybrid status of civil controllers: these civil servants of French nationality embodied French sovereignty in Morocco, but were denied the status of civil servants of the French State until 1955. Gathered in an amicale, they strove to obtain this status until 1930.
Un fondement canonique du pouvoir constituant médiéval : « exercitus imperatorem faciat » (Decretum I, D. 93, c. 24 Legimus)
DOI 10.4000/156or
Abstract:
The Legimus canon (Decretum I, D. 93, c. 24), derived from a letter by Saint Jerome around the year 400, incidentally mentions : « exercitus imperatorem faciat ». However, the lex regia was already intended to provide, since the doctrine of Irnerius († 1130), the foundation of imperial power. Yet, by the late 12th century, the canonist Huguccio established the Legimus canon as a new foundation of imperial power within a dualist perspective. From then on, the doctrine appropriates this canonical foundation, leading to the conception of a constituent power now based on common law, or even the law of nations.
Point de vue
The many territories of Roman law (Dario Mantovani)
DOI 10.4000/156ot
Abstract:
From the 11th century onward, the study of ancient Roman law has been marked by contrasting impulses. One the one hand, Justinian’s Corpus Iuris Civilis was reinterpreted as a body of law detached from historical and geographical specificity, revitalized through academic teaching and functioning as positive law in numerous European contexts (and beyond) from the Middle Ages to the Modern era. On the other hand, when examined in its original context, it remains the law of a specific region – however vast the Roman Empire may have been. Although traditionally tied to the education of jurists in law schools, its study has also demanded a philological and historical approach to enable accurate reconstruction. Roman legal history thus stands as a telling example of the complex relationship between a geographically anchored perspective and a deterritorialized one, and between specialization and interdisciplinarity. Though often regarded as a traditional field, Roman legal history – by virtue of its layered and ambivalent legacy – has also, in key ways, prefigured contemporary methodological innovations in the social sciences and humanities.
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