Gyilkos útonállók. Rablók a kora újkori Kolozsvár bírái előtt
Murderous Highwaymen. Robbers at the Judicial Court of Early Modern Cluj

Summary/Abstract: The study analyzes cases of pre-modern robberies with murders committed by gangs of robbers, whose captured members had to face justice in front of the judges of Cluj. The incomplete judicial protocols and account books of Cluj from between 1570 and 1660 had preserved twelve lawsuits of the kind. All these crimes, executed with brute physical force and direct confrontation, were tied to the world of men, women occured rarely and usually as victims of the actions. A good number of the perpetrators were from mountain villages from the close or more distant proximity of Cluj (Sălicea, Finișel, Heșdate, Ocolișel). Quite a few victims were travelers, especially merchants or simple people who attended markets, but there were others, like stock-farmers or shepherds, too. The gangs usually had three to five members, even the biggest ones did not exceed ten or thirteen people. Both their number and their members were in constant change, so they did not have a solid internal organization and hierarchy. Because no perpetrator wanted eyewitnesses, the deeds were committed mainly on alpine pastures, on mountain roads from or next to forests, on underbrushes and marshlands close to rivers and lakes. Torture was an important element of the judicial proceedings, used to find out all the possible details of the crimes and to trace down other members of the criminal gangs. The verdicts of the cases show that the murderous robbers, like elsewhere in the pre-modern Europe, received harsh punishments. The majority of them were impaled, two of them beheaded, but quartering and hanging were also used as measures of retribution.

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