Neither Song Nor Knell Shall Sound : The Body and Soul of a Suicide Before Patrimonial Courts in the Pre-Enlightenment Era Neither Song Nor Knell Shall Sound The Body and Soul of a Suicide Before Patrimonial Courts in the Pre-Enlightenment Era Neither Song Nor Knell Shall Sound The Body and Soul of a Suicide Before Patrimonial Courts in the Pre-Enlightenment Era Neither Song Nor Knell Shall Sound The Body and Soul of a Suicide Before Patrimonial Courts in the Pre-Enlightenment Era Neither Song Nor Knell Shall Sound
Abstract
The paper studies the gradual changes in the punishment of suicide in the Eggenberg/Schwarzenberg and Czernin demesnes in South Bohemia in the pre-Enlightenment era (roughly 1675-1780). Most sources therefore come from the archival fonds from manor estates stored by the State Regional Archive in Třeboň, specifically its departments in Třeboň, Jindřichův Hradec and Český Krumlov.
Up until the Age of Enlightenment, suicide was considered a serious criminal offence which merited a double punishment: "spiritual" sanctions pursuant to canon law (the offender was denied proper Christian Burial rites, interment on consecrated ground, requiem mass and intercessory prayers), as well as "physical" sanctions (burial in non-consecrated ground, by law usually at a place of "dishonor," such as beneath the gallows, on cattle burial sites or in midden heaps). The various practices accompanying such burials (burning the body and any personal items, cutting off the head) often contained elements of contact magic (dealing with impurity) or protective magic (warding off revenants or vampires).
In the pre-Enlightenment era, the definition of suicide as a criminal offence was stipulated by the Koldín Code (1579), and was subsequently included in the Constitutio Criminalis Josephina (1708) and Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana (1768/1770). The shift toward legal decriminalization started with the Josephine Criminal Code (1787), which banned any humiliating practices connected with the disposal of the body.
In 1803, suicide was reduced to a mere misdemeanor (1803), until it was decriminalized completely in 1850. However, all of the aforementioned legal regulations made a strict distinction between a "true" suicide, committed with "malicious intent" (including suicide committed out of "godless desperation"), and suicide caused by madness or melancholy, which was exempt from punishment.
Using over a hundred cases investigated by the local patrimonial courts in the years 1675-1780, I have attempted to calculate the rate of truly "condemned" suicides compared to those who were exculpated, in order to illustrate the clear tendency of the patrimonial courts toward a deliberate interpretation of suicide as the consequence of a "disturbed mind," which effectively led to reduced repression over the course of the 18th century. Such reduced repression manifested itself in the gradual abandonment of rituals accompanying the "disposal" and burial of the body, which we might interpret as the effect of greater awareness of the principles of sanitation, but also the growing aversion of (at least) the more literate and educated classes toward displaying dead bodies, the gradually reduced importance placed on the "clean/unclean" categorization, as well as an apparent development of certain social empathy.
The paper also analyzes the attitudes toward suicide demonstrated by the various groups and authorities involved in the investigation proceedings: representatives of secular power, meaning the lower jurisdiction bodies (towns/cities with legal jurisdiction), the patrimonial office and/or the appellate court in Prague; as well as representative of ecclesiastical power - local parish priests and the archbishop's consistory; but also the offender's neighbors and other witnesses. Exploring such attitudes, it strives to demonstrate that the factual decriminalization occurred from the top down (the patrimonial authorities were usually more lenient than the Church, while commoners tended to be the most unforgiving).
The paper also focuses on various defensive strategies employed by the bereaved (attempts to prove the suicide's "innocence," i.e. their "madness"), strategies employed by the ecclesiastical authorities as regards the denial/permission of Christian burial, and attitudes and conduct of the local communities (refusal to accept the presence of a suicide's body for fear of ghosts/revenants, bad harvest, etc.).