Relationale Wirklichkeiten. Malefizverbrechen in Norm und Praxis im Erzherzogtum Österreich unter der Enns im 18. Jahrhundert

Contribution to Publishing Costs D 3253 Rationale Wirklichkeiten. Malefixverbrechen in Norm und Praxis Andrea GRIESEBNER 26.6.2000 A first version of this book was accepted as a doctoral thesis at the University of Vienna, in spring 1998. For the publication, some chapters were revised. The theoretical and methodological parts were shortened and the empirical ones extended. A chapter which was central in the dissertation, on feminist theories since the 1970s, was not included in the printed version in order to allow for some extensions without increasing overall length too much. The chapter on criminal law could hence be extended to include a description of the Codes of Criminal Procedure, and chapter VI now features a number of case studies. This book analyses the local court of the market town Perchtoldsdorf (south-west of Vienna), during the 18th century. The court was furthermore responsible for two much smaller villages in the neighbourhood, Rodaun and Siebenhirten. This court district serves as a "historical laboratory" for scrutinizing the question which practices were, at the time, perceived and treated as felonies. Included are all legal proceedings on felonies negotiated between 1700 and 1789 at this court. Of crucial interest are two questions: which variables and criteria influenced the perception and valuation of social practices? And: which relevance had gender issues within this process? The methodological and theoretical foundations having been laid out in chapter 1, the relevant local area and judicial Organisation are introduced in chapter 11. The particular status of Perchtoldsdorf as a territory of the sovereign meant that the members of the- court had to apply proceedings which respected the rules laid down in the Ferdinandea and, after 1769, in the Theresiana more correctly than other courts. Therefore, chapter III analyses these two criminal codifications. They imposed categories to be used by the members of local courts to differentiate between prohibited and legal practices, between felonies and misdemeanours. These codifications furthermore defined mitigating and aggravating circumstances, be it of a general or of an issue-specific range of application. In short, they represented a frame for the judgements of the members of local courts legal experts. Part II of the study focuses on the practice of court decisions. Chapter IV introduces the readers to the multidimensionality and heterogeneity of the texts emerging in the context of criminal court proceedings in order to develop a methodological framework for reconstructing the valuation of such sources. Structure and construction of court records are studied in detail in chapter V. The arrangement like scenes of three court records, which report the very same event, illustrates narrative strategies and patterns of argumentation. Furthermore, contradictions between and inconsistencies within the different narratives are pointed out. Chapter VI reviews the practices recognised as felonies, during the period under study. It discusses the stated reasons for punishing practices in specific ways. (It should be mentioned, however, that processes on classical theft-which represent approximately half of all processes-are excluded.) The court records are confronted with the hypothesis developed in chapter III: The analysis of the local courts` rules of procedure showed clearly, that practices did not have any fixed cultural meaning. Rather, place, time, frequency and personal constellations of involved men and women defined and modified the `cultural meaning`, as did social status, family status, age, gender, religious and ethnic affiliations and reputation ("Leumuth") of defendants. The analysis shows how the multi-perspectivity of particular practices was increasingly simplified during judicial inquiries and how an authoritatively certified "truth" was drawn from ambiguous practices, leading to the conviction of the delinquents. This makes clear that the specific meaning of being male or female within this process cannot be seen in isolation, but is directly related to other, hierarchically structured differences. For this reason, the concluding chapter questions methodological approaches which use gender as an absolute category. The author holds that a simple contrasting of women and men is insufficient because such an analysis excludes other hierarchically structured differences. Consequently, the analysis leads back to methodological and theoretical reflections. It ends with a proposal how to conceptualise gender as a category which is relational in multiple ways.