The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (sometimes shortened to Carolina) is recognised as the first body of German criminal law (Strafgesetzbuch). It was also known as the Halsgerichtsordnung of Charles V. The Strafgesetzbuch is the German, Swiss and Austrian criminal Law. ... Blutgericht (literally blood court or blood doom), or high justice in the Holy Roman Empire referred to the right of a reeve to hold a criminal court inflicting bodily punishment, including the death penalty. ...

Its basis was the Halsgerichtsordnung of Bamberg (also known as the Bambergensis) drawn up by Johann Freiherr von Schwarzenberg in 1507, which in turn went back to the humanistic school of Roman law. Blutgericht (literally blood court or blood doom), or high justice in the Holy Roman Empire referred to the right of a reeve to hold a criminal court inflicting bodily punishment, including the death penalty. ... For other meanings, see Bamberg (disambiguation). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome. ...

The Carolina was agreed in 1530 at the Diet of Augsburg under Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and ratified two years later at the Diet in Regensburg (which was judicially a Hoftag, an informal meeting), at which point it became law. It predominantly covered civil law alongside criminal law. Under the terms of the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina, actions such as murder, manslaughter, robbery, arson, homosexuality and witchcraft were henceforth defined as severe crimes. In particularly the Carolina specified that those found guilty of causing harm through witchcraft should be executed with fire, laying the foundation for the mass witch trials between 1580 and 1680. It was also the basis for the use of obtaining confessions by torture. Reading of the Confessio Augustana by Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg, 1530 The Diet of Augsburg were the meetings of the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire in the German city of Augsburg. ... Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. ... Regensburg (also Ratisbon, Latin Ratisbona) is a city (population 129,175 in 2005) in Bavaria, south-east Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of statutory and common law that deals with crime and the legal punishment of criminal offenses. ... The Skyline Parkway Motel in Afton, Virginia after an arson fire on July 9, 2004. ... Homosexuality refers to sexual and romantic attraction between two individuals of the same sex. ... Witchcraft, in various historical, religious and mythological contexts, is the use of certain kinds of alleged supernatural or magical powers. ... Burning of two sodomites at the stake outside Zürich, 1482 (Spiezer Schilling) Execution by burning has a long history as a method of punishment for crimes such as treason and for other unpopular acts such as heresy and the putative practice of witchcraft (burning, however, was actually less common... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The word torture is commonly used to mean the infliction of pain to break the will of the victim(s). ...

The aim of the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina was to unify the legal system of the Holy Roman Empire, and thereby put an end to the penal jurisdiction which had until then varied haphazardly between the Empire's states. The Carolina succeeded in this despite a severability clause under which the Carolina only had subsidiary importance to the particular laws of the Imperial Estates. This severability clause was necessary to secure the assent of the Imperial Estates, which wanted to hold on to their own legal and legislative powers. Nevertheless the severability clause did not detract from the Carolina's unification of the legal system and its reformatory effect on criminal law was indisputable. The double-headed eagle A portrait of Charlemagne wearing the crown of the Holy Roman Empire (15th century painting by Albrecht Dürer) The Holy Roman Empire was a mainly Germanic conglomeration of lands in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. ... The severability clause (sometimes referred to as a salvatorius clause, from the Latin word salvatorius) is the name for a special clause that regulates the legal consequences or the applicability of the remaining clauses of a contract, when some clauses of a contract are or become ineffective or infeasible. ...

References

• Carnell, Elisabeth: Crimen Excepta: Torture, Jesuits and Witches in Early Seventeenth Century Germany
• Geus, Elmar: Mörder, Diebe, Räuber: historische Betrachtung des deutschen Strafrechts von der Carolina bis zum Reichsstrafgfesetzbuch. Berlin: Scrîpvaz-Verlag Krauskopf 2002 ISBN 3-931278-14-X
• Latein-pagina.de: Die Constitutio Criminalis Carolina
• Malblank, Julius Friedrich: Geschichte der peinlichen Gerichtsordnung von Kaiser Karl V., Nuremberg, Grattenauer, 1782 (Reprint: Goldbach, Keip 1998, ISBN 3-8051-0418-9)
• Schroeder, Friedrich-Christian: Die peinliche Gerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V. und des Heiligen Römischen Reichs von 1532 = (Carolina)., Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000, ISBN 3-15-018064-3

External links

• This article is based on a translation of the corresponding German-language Wikipedia article.
• (German) Further reading from DNB and GBV