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{{short description|Legal hierarchy in Western feudalism}}
{{more citations needed|date=June 2007}}

'''High, middle and low justices''' are notions dating from Western [[feudalism]] to indicate descending degrees of [[judicial]] power to administer [[justice]] by the maximal punishment the holders could inflict upon their subjects and other dependents. The scale of punishment generally matched the scale of spectacle (e.g. a public hanging = high justice), so that in France, Paul Friedland argues: "The degree of spectacle [was] originally the basis for a distinction between high and low justice", with an intervening level of 'middle justice', characterised by limited or modest spectatorship, added around the end of the fourteenth century.<ref>Paul Friedland, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment in France, OUP, 2012.</ref>

Low justice regards the level of day-to-day [[Civil law (common law)|civil]] actions, including voluntary justice, minor [[plea]]s, and [[Misdemeanor|petty offence]]s generally settled by [[Fine (penalty)|fine]]s or light [[corporal punishment]]. It was held by many lesser authorities, including many [[Lord of the manor|lords of the manor]], who sat in justice over the [[serf]]s, unfree [[tenants]], and freeholders on their land. Middle justice would involve full civil and [[criminal jurisdiction]], except for [[capital crime]]s, and notably excluding the right to pass the [[death penalty]], [[torture]] and severe corporal punishment, which was reserved to authorities holding high justice, or the ''ius gladii'' ("right of the sword").

==Pyramid of feudal justice==
Although the terms ''high'' and ''low'' suggest a strict subordination, this was not quite the case; a case could often be brought in any of several courts, with the principle of "prevention" (in the etymological sense of Latin ''praevenire'', "to come before") granting [[jurisdiction]] to the court in which the case was first filed or otherwise brought.

As a rule, each court administered justice in general (criminal cases were generally not separate from civil actions and other types of justice, while certain matters were separated such as [[Canon law (Catholic Church)|canon law]]), as long as the matter was not reserved for a higher court or by virtue of some ''[[privilegium fori]]'' (e.g., of clerics to be judged in canon courts by other clergy, sometimes under ecclesiastical law, the origin of the English [[Common law|common-law]] concept—[[benefit of clergy]]). In addition to civil and criminal trials, the notion of justice also included ''voluntary justice'', which is really the official recording of deeds (unilateral or bilateral) such as marital agreements, wills, grants, etc.

A right of appeal was not automatically available, only when explicitly established, and if so not always to a court of the superior political level or a higher degree of the trio. In fact, feudal justice was a labyrinth of specific customs and rules in nearly endless variation, not governed by any clear legal logic, and subject to significant historical evolution in time. However, the largely [[customary law]] tended by nature to be quite conservative. In judicial matters—as in all spheres of life—feudal society did not see uniformity as either possible or necessarily desirable, each town and region has its customs and ways of doing things, and resented attempts to interfere with them.

While the right of justice is held by many "unique" courts, relatively strong states make it a pillar of their absolutist (re)emergence to establish numerous courts to administer justice in their name in different territorial circumscriptions, such as the royal (high) sheriffs in England, or to impose an appeal (at least unifying the law as such) to a royal court, as to the various French provincial ''[[parlement]]s''.

== High justice ==
{{redirect|High justice|the book|High Justice}}
{{further|Capital punishment in Germany}}
[[File:Hand of justice Louvre MS85.jpg|thumb|150px|Hand of justice displayed at the [[Louvre]], Paris]]
High justice, also known as  ''{{langx|la|ius gladii}}'' ("right of the sword") or in German as ''{{lang|de|Blutgerichtsbarkeit}}'', ''{{lang|de|Blutgericht}}'' ({{literally|blood justice}}, "blood-court";<ref>"blood-court" is a literal of {{lang|de|Blutgericht}}; 
The ''Dictionary of the English and German Languages'' by Christoph Friedrich Grieb (1863) translates the term simply as "a criminal court".</ref> sometimes also ''{{lang|de|Halsgericht}}'', {{literally|neck-justice}}, or ''{{lang|de|peinliches Gericht}}''<ref>[http://lexika.digitale-sammlungen.de/adelung/lemma/bsb00009132_3_0_452 Halsgericht] in [[Johann Christoph Adelung|Adelung]],  ''Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart'' (1774–1786).</ref>) is the highest penal authority, including [[capital punishment]], as held by a sovereign—the [[sword of justice]] and hand of justice are [[regalia]] that symbolize it.  In the early [[Holy Roman Empire]], high justice was reserved to the [[king of Germany|king]]. From the 13th century, it was transferred to the king's [[feudalism|vassals]] along with their fiefs.

The first codification of capital punishment was the ''Halsgerichtsordnung'' passed by [[Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor|Maximilian I]] in 1499, followed in 1507 by the ''Constitutio Criminalis Bambergensis''. Both codes formed the basis of the ''Constitutio Criminalis Carolina'' (CCC), passed in  1532 under [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]]. In the [[Habsburg monarchy]], all regional codes were superseded by the ''Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana'' in 1768.

The ''Blutbanner'' ("blood banner") or ''Blutfahne'' ("blood flag") was a solid red flag. It was presented to feudal lords as a symbol of their power of high jurisdiction (''Blutgerichtsbarkeit'') together with the heraldic banner of the fief. Some feudal houses adopted a red field symbolic of the blood banner into their coat of arms, the so-called ''Regalienfeld''. The [[Talschaft]] ([[forest canton]]) of [[canton of Schwyz|Schwyz]] used the blood banner as a [[war flag]] from {{circa|1240}}, and was later incorporated into the [[flag of Schwyz]] and the [[flag of Switzerland]].

Often it is proudly displayed, in the form of relevant status symbols. Thus permanent [[gallows]] are often erected in prominent public places; the very word for them in French, ''potence'', is derived from the Latin "potentia" meaning "power".

High justice is held by all states and the highest vassals in the European type of feudal society, but may also be acquired by other authorities as part of a high degree of legal autonomy, such as certain cities; which in time often obtained other high privileges originally reserved for high nobility and sometimes high clergy.  Other such privileges could include a seat in a [[diet (assembly)|diet]] or a similar feudal representative assembly, before the [[Estates of the realm|third estate]] as such even aspired to such "parliamentary" representation, or the right to [[mint (coin)|mint]] coins. These privileges indicating its so-called ''liberty'' was an "equal" enclave in the territorial jurisdiction of the neighboring feudal (temporal or ecclesiastical) Lord, sometimes even extending rather like a ''[[polis]]'' in Antiquity.

Not every [[Vogt]] held high justice. Up to the 18th century, for example, the blood court of much of what is now the [[canton of Zürich]] lay with [[County of Kyburg|Kyburg]], even in the territory ruled by the counts of [[Greifensee, Zürich|Greifensee]]. The self-administration of the blood court was an important factor of [[Imperial immediacy]].

==See also==
* [[Landgericht (medieval)]]
* [[Private jurisdiction]]
* {{ill|Zwing und Bann|de}}

==References==
{{Lacking ISBN|date=November 2024}}{{Reflist}}

=== Bibliography ===
*Richard J. Evans, ''Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600-1987'', Oxford University Press (1996).

{{DEFAULTSORT:High, Middle And Low Justice}}
[[Category:Feudalism]]
[[Category:Justice]]
[[Category:Medieval law]]
[[Category:Early modern law]]
[[Category:Law of the Holy Roman Empire]]

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