How to Question a Suspect Thoroughly

Abstract

For a long time, early modern judicial procedures have been portrayed as harsh, ad hoc, sloppy, superficial, heavy-handed, and extremely brutal, with suspects threatened, bullied, and pressured to confess through every possible means. Yet, surprisingly little is known about actual interrogation techniques in early modern Europe. What kind of questions were posed? Did examining magistrates immediately press for a full confession by inflicting fear and awe on the accused or did they use more sophisticated techniques? Were these methods modified by Enlightened rationalisation or did they remain unchanged until the early nineteenth century? Drawing fresh evidence from the examinatieën en informatieën — the reports of the preliminary investigation of the Antwerp Hoge Vierschaar — this article demonstrates how interrogation techniques were slowly but surely fine-tuned in the course of the eighteenth century. Change was already well underway before the French Revolution.