Punishment and Reward During the Estates Uprising and Its Defeat
Žerotín, Liechtenstein, Wallenstein
Abstract
The present article deals with the issue of the Estates Uprising in the Habsburg monarchy, as an historical process, in our case personified by the persons of Ladislaus Velen of Žerotín, Charles of Liechtenstein and Albrecht of Wallenstein, consisting of a complicated sequence of punishments and rewards. The Estates Uprising of 1618–1620, or more exactly in the broader sense of the word, of 1620–1636, can be seen as a complex of „crimes and punishments“, as well as „crimes and rewards“. Although the question of the crime seems obvious, it too was subject to change in the legal and constitutional system of the time and in later historiography. All the parts of the composite sentence were taken to be individual sanctions, even if the crime was committed by a group or a collective body. At the same time, the lower and upper limits of the assigned punishment related to the proven degree of guilt of a specific person, or to be more exact, took into account any aggravating and mitigating circumstances. At the same time, it was clear that pardons were used as counterweights to punishment, and last but not least, rewards were made to people standing on the opposite side of the imaginary barrier – for showing loyalty, active assistance or faithful service. At the same time, such reward was not as clearly defined in the legal system of the time as was the case of punishment. Although early modern elites also tried to justify it, its nature was on the whole political and was dependent on the will and intentions of the head of society. Even so, it was directly related to the punishment and often mirrored it.
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