The legal context of death in the time of the Mojmírs and the Árpáds

Abstract

LYSÝ, Miroslav. The legal context of death in the time of the Mojmírs and the Árpáds. The death of a person is a complex issue fact that older law looked at in two ways. First and foremost, death represented a consequence; the application of a legal sanction. The oldest law considered execution more as a means of healing, as a ritual, and only in the late Middle Ages was execution thought of as a deterrent or a means of retaliation towards a criminal. In the second approach, death could be a prerequisite for a range of legal consequences. For example, a marriage ends with a death, and after the canonical form of marriage was instituted, death was the only legal method of ending a marriage. Naturally, death was key in inheritance law, as it is a prerequisite for obtaining family assets. Legal holdovers from the Árpád period regulated in particular the protection of widows and the interests of the presently forming nobility among the population.