Od soseda do tujca: izgon v zgodnjenovoveški Ljubljani

Abstract

Predicated on town-court registers from 1521–1677, this paper addresses the use of banishment in early modern Ljubljana. The temporary or permanent banishment of unruly people or deviant behaviour was a key tool (sanction) and rite of social control in medieval and early modern Europe. Particularly from the fifteenth century, banishment was increasingly used to safeguard moral norms, a process exacerbated by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. The article investigates how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ljubljana magistrates used banishment to maintain the social and moral order in town, and how its use was contingent on the nature of crime, the offenders’ social status and gender, as well as the expectations of the population in keeping order and peace. The analysis demonstrates that banishment in the relatively small Habsburg princely town was used in much the same way as in larger free Imperial cities. The sanction was most often ruled for transgressions against sexual morals, such as adultery and prostitution, and for theft. The social standing of offenders is rarely given, but burghers were few. Gender is much better documented. In the seventeenth century, there was a rise in the number of women banished for theft and especially for of- fences against sexual norms, which was the result of tightened social disciplining following the Counter-Reformation. Similarly, the general upswing in the use of banishment in the 1610s and mid-1630s points to a growing need for social control due to the fallout from wars and plague epidemics, which strained not only the urban economy, but also exacerbated social relations.