Stolen Wealth, Perpetrators and Punishments in Moldavia (17Th Century – Early 18Th Century)
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BALCANICA POSNANIENSIA XXVI Poznań 2019 STOLEN WEALTH, PERPETRATORS AND PUNISHMENTS IN MOLDAVIA (17TH CENTURY – EARLY 18TH CENTURY) Că t ă l i n a Ch e l C u Abstract. For the historical period we refer to, no proper inventories have been made containing the unjustly ap- propriated goods. They are just mentioned as such or listed, if that was the case, according to the size of the dam- age. There are also documentary sources in which the object of the theft is less represented, the justice system focusing in those cases rather on the wrongdoers, than on the wrong actions. That is why, the blood money “paid for some reason”, with no other specific details, is quite frequently cited. Rare or frequent, these documents are complaints addressed by the victim to the Prince and his officials, documents in which the perpetrators admitted their fault, or deeds issued by the judicial authority subsequent to the investigation of the criminal act. In discuss- ing the theft of/from the wealth, i.e. from the whole amount of the available goods, we are interested in clarifying some aspects pertaining to a reality that the historian should reconstruct, with all the complexity of its evolution: the motivations of the theft and its circumstances, the types of theft, the social categories involved, the time and space of the misdemeanour, the perpetrators’ punishment. Briefly, the study is about starting to write a history of the reprehensible acts liable to punishments for theft and robbery in 17th and early 18th century Moldavia. STRESZCZENIE. Rabunek majątku, przestępcy i kary w Mołdawii (XVII w. – wczesny wiek XVIII). Dla omawianego przez nas wieku nie tworzono żadnych właściwych wykazów bezprawnie przywłaszczonych dóbr. W niektórych przypadkach są one jedynie wspomniane lub wylistowane według rozmiaru szkody. Istnieją też źródła dokumentalne, które obiektom kradzieży poświęcają mniej uwagi, a system sprawiedliwości skupia się w tych przypadkach raczej na przestępcach i ich czynach. Dlatego też często przywołuje się tzw. okup krwi „płacony w określonym celu” i nie podaje się szczegółów spraw. Dokumenty te są zażaleniami adresowany- mi przez ofiarę do księcia lub jego urzędników, są też pisane przez przestępców przyznających się do winy, lub też są to dokumenty wystawione przez władze sądownicze i poprzedzają one dochodzenie w sprawie kryminal- nej. Rozważając kradzież części mienia tj. z całości dostępnych dóbr, naszym celem jest wyjaśnienie pewnych aspektów odnoszących się do rzeczywistości, którą historyk powinien zrekonstruować wraz z całą złożonością zmian tej rzeczywistości: motywami kradzieży i jej okolicznościami, typami kradzieży, związanymi z nią katego- riami społecznymi, czasem i przestrzenią występku, karą dla sprawcy. Rekapitulując, przedstawione w artykule badanie ogniskuje się na początkach tworzenia pisemnej historii dotyczącej nagannych aktów podlegających karze za kradzież i rozbój w XVII i w początkach XVIII wieku w Mołdawii. Author: Cătălina Chelcu, Romanian Academy, A.D. Xenopol Institute of History, Iaşi, Romania, e-mail: [email protected], ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1941-9392 Keywords: stolen wealth, punishments, “okup krwi”, robber, criminal justice Słowa kluczowe: rabunek majątku, kary, opłaty za „mokrą robotę”, rozboje, prawo kryminalne Balcanica Posnaniensia. Acta et studia, XXVI, Poznań 2019, Wydawnictwo Instytutu Historii UAM, pp. 105– 129, ISBN 978-83-66355-32-3, ISSN 0239-4278. English text with summaries in English and Polish. doi.org/10.14746/bp.2019.26.7 106 CăTăLINA CHELCU For the historical period we refer to, no proper inventories have been made containing the unjustly appropriated goods. They are just mentioned as such or listed, if that was the case, according to the size of the damage. There are also documentary sources in which the object of the theft is less represented, the justice system focusing in those cases rather on the wrongdoers, than on the wrong actions. That is why, the blood money “paid for some reason”, with no other specific details, is quite frequently cit- ed. Rare or frequent, these documents are complaints addressed by the victim to the Prince and his officials, documents in which the perpetrators admitted their fault, or deeds issued by the judicial authority subsequent to the investigation of the criminal act. In discussing the theft of/from the wealth, i.e. from the whole amount of the avail- able goods, we are interested in clarifying some aspects pertaining to a reality that the historian should reconstruct, with all the complexity of its evolution: the motivations of the theft and its circumstances, the types of theft, the social categories involved, the time and space of the misdemeanour, the perpetrators’ punishment. Briefly, the study is about starting to write a history of the reprehensible acts liable to punishments for theft and robbery in 17th and early 18th century Moldavia. Based on large historical “investigations”, the papers published in the western his- toriographic area, especially the French one, put forward new readings of different as- pects of criminal reality, in different areas and periods. Among them, our attention was particularly drawn by: the exposure of the deepest resources of medieval and modern violence and the disclosure of its identity-related dimension, the approach of the theft issue, an everyday life-rooted crime1, and of robbery, or as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie put it, of the “crime against things”2, and how the imposition of specific methods of violence repression were justified3. 1 Valérie Toureille, Vol et brigandage au Moyen Âge, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2006, p. 1. 2 Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, sat occitan de la 1294 până la 1324, vol. II, transla- tion in Romanian, foreword and notes by Maria Carpov, Bucharest, Editura Meridiane, 1992, p. 302 (French: Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324, Paris, Gallimard, 1975). 3 Here are, in a brief enumeration, some of these contributions: Bronislaw Geremek, Les marginaux parisiens aux XIVe et XVe siècles, Paris, Flammarion, 1976; Jacques Chiffoleau, Les justices du pape. Délinquance et criminalité à Avignon au XIV siècle d’après les registres de la cour temporelle, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1984; Claude Gauvard, «De grace especial». Crime, État et Société en France à la fin du Moyen Âge, 2 vol., Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1991; idem, Violence et ordre public au Moyen Âge, Paris, Picard, 2005; Patrick J. Geary, Le vol des reliques au Moyen Âge. Furta sa- cra, traduit de l’anglais par Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat, Paris, Aubier, 1993; Banditisme et violence sociale dans les sociétés de l’Europe méditerranéenne , dans Actes du colloque de Bastia (27–29 mai 1993), textes réunis par G. Ravis-Giordani et A. Rovere, Ajaccio, La marge éditions, 1997; M. P. Di Bella (dir.), Vols et sanctions en Méditerrannée, Amsterdam, Éditions des Archives contemporaines, 1998; Marie-Sylvie Dupont-Bouchat, Le crime pardonné: la justice réparatrice sous l’Ancien Régime (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle), dans “Criminologie”, 32, no. 1, 1999, p. 31–56; B. Garnot (dir.), De la déviance à la délinquance, XVe– XXe siècles, Dijon, Éditions universitaires de Dijon, 1999; David Nirenberg, Violence et minorités au Moyen Âge, Paris, PUF, 2001; Valérie Toureille, Vol et brigandage au Moyen Âge, Paris, PUF, 2006; Bruno Lemesle, Conflits et justice au Moyen Âge, Paris, PUF, 2008; Loïc Cadiet, Frédéric Chauvaud, STOLEN WEALTH, PERPETRATORS AND PUNISHMENTS IN MOLDAVIA 107 Historians have not yet given a monographic perspective upon theft and robbery in the medieval and premodern period Moldavia. What we have is a look upon vi- olence in general, and upon the levers of its domination power south and east the Carpathians4. Highlighting some aspects regarding the significance of the phenomenon of social discipline, the issue of the ‘haiduci’ [outlaws, brigands] from Transylvania, Bihor and Moldavia, situations and perceptions of the soldier at the beginning of the modern period in Transylvania and Bihor areas5 represent important steps towards a history of the acts to be labelled as theft, with or without violence, which, together with other actions, in a given historical context, caused the inhabitants a feeling of in- security6. The ‘righteous’ felt menaced by the “wrongdoers in the village, thieves or robbers”. The latter’s acts and the outcomes of their acts will make the object of our preliminary approach in the following lines. COMMON THIEF OR THEFT The thieves, who were peasants, freemen or serfs7, Gypsies or servants8, fore- igners9, Turks or Tartars who were committing thefts especially in the border areas10, Claude Gauvard, Pauline Schmitt Pantel et Myriam Tsikounas (dir.), Figures de femmes criminelles de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2010; Benoît Garnot, La violence dans la France moderne: une violence apprivoisée?, dans Mélanges offerts au professeur Maurice Gresset. Des institutions et des hommes, Besançon, Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2007, p. 93–10; idem, Au temps de bons juges d’Ancien Régime, dans “L’Histoire”, 2010, p. 78–83; Sarah Auspert, Isabelle Parmentier, Xavier Rousseaux, Buveurs, voleuses, insensés et prisonniers à Namur au XVIIIe siècle. Déviance, justice et régulation sociale au temps des Lumières, Namur, Presses Universitaires de Namur, 2012. 4 Dan Horia Mazilu, Lege şi fărădelege în lumea românească veche, Iași, Polirom, 2006. 5 We are referring to the following studies, collected in Caiete de antropologie istorică,