Czynności przygotowawcze w sprawach kryminalnych rozpoznawanych przez sądy miejskie w Polsce XVI-XVIII wieku

Abstract

The towns of the pre-partition Poland were governed by a separate law, the so called German law which between the 16th and 18th centuries already differed a lot from its Magdeburgian prototype. The criminal trial used in these towns, despite some influences of the inquisitional proceedings remained the features of the plaint-contradictory procedure. The trial, in principle, started from lodging a plaint by a person in question. Thus, one can ask a question on initial and preparatory activities preceding court proceedings, examine who initiated and conducted them. The studies covered the practices of selected towns in Małopolska. It turns out that the very little information on preparatory activities conducted before the plaint was lodged is available. Thus we can assume that a small number of source information relates to the poverty of the initial activities themselves. They were most often boiled down to individual actions, aiming at, for instance, detecting the criminal and his/her capturing. In addition, only a part of them was introduced by the court, the other was taken at the request of private people and there were also the ones introduced without the engagement of a public factor. Probably, only a part of them was inquisitive in nature. What is more, we hardly notice more developed forms of proceedings which covered different activities mutually complementing one another. Law and municipal practice clearly did not manage to shape a preparatory proceeding preceding a court trial. Instead, only its elements appeared in the form of different, often completely informal, activities.