Estudio comparado del proceso penal en los derechos castellano e inglés en la Edad Media

Abstract

Abstract From a comparative approach, this study analyses the criminal process in the Hispanic and English Law in the Middle Ages. The activation of the criminal proceedings and prosecution in both (Hispanic and English) legal cultures are the basis underlying this article. In the English context, the transition from the mob justice of the outlawry process and the private justice (blood feud) to the justice of the king is analyzed. The evolution of the process circumscribed to the compurgatory swearing in the Early Middle Ages (subject to a strict formalism where there is just the possibility of the sworn judgement of the legal parties and the party’s witnesses) to the prosecution by a judge with ruling authority in the Late Middle Ages is also examined. On the other hand, regarding the Visigothic Hispania, this study focuses on the types of procedures as regulated in the Liber Iudiciorum, in the Early Middle Ages. This is a legal text which maintains its validity by adapting to the local customs in the municipal custumals of the reconquered territories in the transition to the Late Middle Ages. Following the arrival of the Roman-Canon Law the adversarial and the inquisitorial procedures are studied and also the way in which both give rise to a mixed procedural model which combines the ritual elements of both procedural models.