Incrimination of Ravishment in 17th Century Walachia

Abstract

Walachia was a principality established in 1330 in the south of nowadays Romania, on the territory between the Southern Carpathian Mountains and the Danube. law of this principality was a mixture of customary law (the Custom of the Land ) and written laws (inspired by the Byzantine Law). In 1652, Metropolitan Bishop Stefan (Stephen) published the of the Law by God That Has All the Canon and Imperial Judicial Authorities on All the Priestly and Secular Crimes, thus complying with Prince Matei Basarab's order. The Guidance of the Law... was a vast collection of provisions of Canon Law, Civil Law as well as Criminal Law. present paper aims to describe for the Western reader the provisions of the of the Law... on the crime of ravishment. Ravishment was a frequent crime in Walachia in the 17th century, because at the time marriages were negotiated between the bride's parents and the groom (or the groom's parents) and because that century was a violent age for Walachians (with the exception of 20 years, during the reign of Matei Basarab). This paper will present the legal definition of ravishment, the aggravations, the mitigating circumstances of ravishment, the penalties as well as the cases when the ravisher was exempt of penalty. reader will be able to discover the intricate provisions by which the judges were allowed to adapt the ravisher's penalty, avoiding the capital punishment.