Search

Through the lens of comparative legal history, this study re-examines the story of the Wise Woman of Tekoa (2 Sam. 14.2–24) as a narrativized legal petition—an ancient Near Eastern epistolary sub-genre known from cuneiform and alphabetic inscriptions. This brief juridical parable offers a unique account of justice and adjudication largely independent of its ideological depiction in the Pentateuchal law codes, making it a critical text in the study of biblical law. In particular, it evokes two distinct forms of judicial wisdom in the context of legal self-help and royal adjudication. By comparing and contrasting this parable with other texts dealing with similar themes, I outline the diverse ways biblical writers explained the intersections of law, wisdom, and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the end of the xiiith century, the commune of Tournai has held, within the territorial limits of its suburbs, all of the rights of échevinage, but it has to deal with an increasingly significant royal jurisdiction, in the person of the bailiff of Tournai-Tournaisis, later the military governor. Added to this are the ecclesiastical jurisdictions of the bishop of Tournai and its officiality, as well as that of the cathedral chapter, which holds an island of immunity in the heart of the city, and jealously guards its privileges for its members. Two abbeys complete the picture of institutions holding jurisdictional rights.A reasoned inventory of the twenty-two prisons used by these different protagonists between ca 1300 and 1600, crossed with their territorial influence and their judicial prerogatives, makes it possible to draw up various observations. Prisons are numerous and fragmented among the different holders of justice rights, who show flexibility and adaptation to respond - imperfectly - to their specific detention needs. Diversity and proliferation of places of detention, very relative concentration, lack of resources and personnel, reassignment of existing buildings that are rather insecure and low specialization characterize Tournai prisons until 1600. From the point of view of prisoners, the situation is far from improve in the xvith century. The conditions of detention are deteriorating significantly and prison sentences, until then largely reserved for ecclesiastical jurisdictions, are also developing in the civil repressive arsenal.

This article analyzes the successful legal struggle of Lope Rodriguez, a Castilian converso who in 1478, following his banishment from his town, petitioned for royal justice. While Rodriguez's case offers new information on conflicts between Old Christians and conversos in pre-inquisitorial Castile, it also sheds light on Castilian legal culture more broadly. Drawing on previously unpublished records from Rodriguez's dossier, the article analyzes how petitions and witness deposition records were deployed as weapons in one local conflict. Since such records were crucial for generating royal interventions in local disputes, effective documentary strategies could sometimes affect power relations on the local level. However, the analysis of Rodriguez's case also demonstrates that the capacity to produce and mobilize records was in itself a highly politicized process, in which local configurations of power often came to play a significant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]