Police Ordinances, Customary Statutes and Normativity Regimes

Abstract

The article provides a case study on the district Starkenburg of the Electorate of Mainz, demonstrating that order and jurisdiction in rural society was based on two different normativity regimes: local customary statutes and early modern police ordinances.  The study uses the database of early modern police ordinances and digital methods as quantitative analysis and the application of the taxonomy/classification schema of police ordinances to compare the normativity of local customary statutes and police ordinances and to evince general trends and changes between the late Middle Ages and the EarlyModern Period.

Keywords

• Legal History
• Police Ordinances
• Customary Law
• Forest Law
• Normativity Regimes
• Rural Society