When writing the history of medieval crime, historians often have to rely on documentation that represents the end-product of a process: sentences or records of fines paid or to be collected. The disadvantage of this approach is that it cannot take account of the context within which those documents were produced. The records from some Italian cities, however, do permit a study of the whole process of trials, from initial denunciation through to sentence. Especially, they show different narrative levels: the primary level (which historians often ignore) is the narrative of the trial itself, and the secondary level (which historians often prefer) is the narrative of the crime. The aim of this chapter is to rescue the primary narrative, and to examine the secondary narrative within a comparative framework. First, though, we need to examine a third narrative, that which historians have created for the evolution of the trial system in the later Middle Ages.

Narrative of the trial system

A standard view, in Italian legal history, of the development of the criminal trial traces a narrative of growing arbitrary power. The starting point of such an account is the early thirteenth century, when there were already two modes of prosecution, by accusation and by inquest. These were subsequently modified in the context of the growth of public authority and urban criminality. Trial by accusation was an open, public debate, which had to follow certain prescribed forms, shared with civil litigation.