He outlawed using torture ‘even against poor people’

Louis’s approach to justice was undoubtedly advanced for his time. He outlawed using torture ‘even against poor people’ in Languedoc because it induced false confessions, and he forbade deciding cases through judicial duel in his own lands, instructing his officers to consult witnesses and documents instead of having the parties square off. But Louis made these changes not only because he wanted his courts to use a better standard of proof, but also because he abhorred violence (between Christians anyway).

J. Firnhaber-Baker, House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France (2024), loc. 4,171

Fifteen men had sworn it was the truth, even if ten of them were suspect witnesses

‘Mala Francia! Mala Francia!’ (‘Wicked France! Wicked France!’), cried the Danish princess.1 Having spent only three months in the kingdom, Ingeborg of Denmark had as yet little French and had to fall back on Latin to express her pain and anger. Her interpreter had just translated the sentence of the bishops and barons who had assembled in the royal hall at Compiègne in November 1193 to investigate her genealogy. They had said that she could not be married to King Philip for they had found her too closely related to his first wife somehow. They were a little vague about the ‘how’ – and later they had to admit they’d made it up – but fifteen men had sworn it was the truth, even if ten of them were suspect witnesses.

J. Firnhaber-Baker, House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France (2024), loc.2,653

Justice, in British India, was far from blind: it was highly attentive to the skin colour of the defendant

Justice, in British India, was far from blind: it was highly attentive to the skin colour of the defendant. Crimes committed by whites against Indians attracted minimal punishment; and Englishman who shot dead his manservant got six months' jail time and a modest fine (then about 100 rupees), while an Indian convicted of attempted rape against an Englishwoman was sentenced to twenty years rigorous imprisonment.

S. Tharoor, Inglorious Empire (2016), 90

Louis II ‘the German’ hanged so many criminals that the archbishop of Mainz was forced to institute special measures to stop the corpses becoming a health hazard

Death sentences were passed far more frequently than they were implemented, because medieval kings could gain prestige from commuting them as an act of clemency, though this became less common under the Salians and Staufers. Lesser lords and commoners were always treated less favourably. Louis II ‘the German’ hanged so many criminals that the archbishop of Mainz was forced to institute special measures to stop the corpses becoming a health hazard

P.H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire (2016), 615