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Book of Juhí de Prohoms from the town of Reus

Date
1610 - 1717
Archive
Municipal Archive of Reus
Document type
Textual
Reference code
CAT-AMRE-01-0044100
Link to the online document
Description

The Book of the Juy of Prohòmens of the town and district of Reus, compiles the sentences handed down by this court between the years 1610 and 1717. With the invocation “The names of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the humble Virgin Mary, his mother, and of the glorious Saint Peter, our patron, humbly invoked” began all the trials carried out by the prohoms of Reus from the end of the Middle Ages until the disappearance of this kind of “popular court” from the application of the Nova Planta decrees.
This valuable copy includes – in a total of 157 folios and some appendices – practically a hundred judicial processes against the inhabitants of the town and those accused of having committed crimes and crimes of all kinds in Reus and its territory, with their corresponding views and sentences, which could range from acquittal to the most severe sentences (such as the mutilation of limbs and capital punishment), through public shame, banishment, the brand or the galley penalty. In all cases,
we are in front of a justice whose purpose was the punishment for the accused and the example for the whole community.