Conviction According to Conscience: The Medieval Jurists' Debate Concerning Judicial Discretion and the Law of Proof

Abstract

One bright, sunny day in northern Italy, let us say in Bologna in the year 1275, a group of law students might have sat and listened to this case. A man named Seius slipped into a shed owned by his sworn enemy, Titius. A priest, a wealthy merchant, and a physician, all of them unimpeachable witnesses, saw Seius enter the shed with his sword drawn. A moment later they heard a man cry out. Then they clearly saw Seius, shaken and pallid, emerge through the doorway, bloody sword in hand. When Seius noticed the witnesses coming toward him, he fled. The witnesses found Titius in the shed, unconscious, dying from a sword wound. Upon investigation, the podestà, the magistrate charged with criminal investigations, discovered that Seius had recently sworn that he would kill Titius, and further, that everyone in town believed that he was guilty. The podestà ordered his arrest and, after a manhunt, Seius was captured before he could slip across the border to the neighboring city-state.