520 claudio povolo
over the course of the medieval and early modern periods, especially in
the large cities of the Veneto and Lombardy plains, forms of justice took
shape that were more clearly punitive. this was shown by the establish-
ment of inquisitorial procedure, which was intended to make the inter-
vention of the court and judges prevail over the autonomous initiative of
the parties in an explicit manifestation of the political predominance of the
cities and their ruling classes over their respective countrysides and, more
generally, over the classes that lacked sufficient honor to enjoy privileged
social status.24 generally speaking, this legal procedure did not in fact
change established trial practices, in which the parties to the conflict and
their disputation continued to play an important role. for the entire 16th
century, moreover, sanctions remained, for the most part, compensatory.
the diffusion of fines and banishment as punishments was accompanied
by the continued use of peace contracts, which were intended to interrupt
the legal processes already underway or else to press the court to impose
a lenient punishment.25 rare executions, which were imposed when the
prevailing values were seriously transgressed, joined punishments whose
main objective was physically marking those deemed harmful to the com-
munity (by, for example, cutting off the ears or nose for theft).26 in short,
the administration of justice was deeply affected by the social practices of
a society organized by kinship and feud whose main objective was social
control, not punishment.27
these forms of justice, bent on creating and maintaining an order
focused on peace, would disappear very slowly. already in the 16th cen-
tury, however, it is possible to identify the emergence of a decidedly new
punitive justice that aimed to support a new concept of order, one that was
no longer intertwined with safeguarding the values and balance of power
of the city. the old cultural system linked to peace and honor would thus
confront a new concept of public order aimed above all at guaranteeing
24 Pitt-rivers, The Fate, pp. 14–16.
25 on the attitude of medieval jurists toward the punishment of banishment, see trevor
dean, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy (cambridge, 2007), pp. 105–06.
26 claudio Povolo, Dall’ordine della pace all’ordine pubblico. Uno sguardo da Venezia e
il suo stato territoriale (secoli XVI–XVIII), in claudio Povolo, ed., Processo e difesa penale
in età moderna. Venezia e il suo stato territoriale (bologna, 2007), pp. 31–38; for germany,
see Jason P. coy, Strangers and Misfits: Banishment, Social Control, and Authority in Early
Modern Germany (Leiden/boston, 2008), pp. 11–30.
27 Martin dinges, The Use of Justice as a Form of Social Control in Early Modern Europe,
in roodenburg and spierenburg, eds., Social Control in Europe, 1:165–69.