This is the second of three papers investigating
the legislative history concerning infanticide. It compares the efforts of
various states to protect the newborn infant between 534 and 1532 CE.
When the
Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th century, the jurisdiction of infanticide was
relegated to the church, which regarded carnal delicts a sin rather than a
crime. The punishment - public penance of the mother for 7-15 years - was
milder than that which the murder of an adult would incur.
The Council of Florence
decreed in 1439 that the souls of children who died without having been
baptized descend to hell. This turned infanticide from a penitential sin to the
most heinous of all crimes. The states passed laws that abominated infanticide
even more than the murder of older humans and punished women with ever more
cruel forms of execution. Towards the men, however, who usually abandoned the
women they had impregnated, the laws were lenient. Churches and society
continued to vilify illegitimate birth, thus enhancing rather than preventing
infanticide.
The Habsburg-German legislation of 1532 ordained to torture any
woman who had concealed pregnancy and birth and claimed the infant was
stillborn. Legislation developed similarly in other countries, albeit at a
different speed.
French (1556) and British (1623) legislation reversed the
burden of proof and demanded the death penalty for concealing pregnancy and
birth when a dead infant was found.
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By:
- 1Department of Neonatology, Charité - University Medicine Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
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