Tři studie o trestním právu v českých zemích v 17. a v první polovině 18. století

Criminal law is not just a set of regulations defining what is a crime and what punishment offenders should receive. The Criminal Code also presents an image of the community and its culture, revealing what subjects are deserving of special protection from the legislative standpoint, and it also tell us how the legislature and the public understand legal liability and how it aligns with the intensity of criminal prosecutions. The publication is devoted to the analysis of three codes, which in the Bohemian Crown Lands – Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margraviate of Moravia and Principalities of Silesia - have enacted laws on punishment and sentencing. These included the codification of the Municipal Law of the Bohemian Kingdom of 1579, which gradually came into effect in Moravia and Silesia as well; the Renewed Land Ordinances, issued after Ferdinand II’s victory in the Battle of White Mountain, in 1627 for the Bohemian Kingdom and one year later also for the Margraviate of Moravia; and Joseph I’s Penal Code of 1707. For the analysis of the first two codes, the author made use of his previous research and publications. The scholar proceeds from the fact that the criminal law, its form and application in the legal life of society, regardless of whether it is a time long past or present, brings a fundamental statement about the transformation of social relationships that is essentially a concentrated intention of ruling elites which more than any other area of law and legal culture shows directions of state policy on the status of various social groups and their interrelationships.