Criminalidad y delincuencia en las villas portuarias de Santander y de San Vicente de la Barquera en los siglos bajomedievales

Abstract

ABSTRACT The town ports of Santander and San Vicente de la Barquera were the most western town ports of the ‘Cuatro Villas de la Costa’. During the late Middle Ages, these towns underwent a series of social changes which affected the whole sociability framework, including criminality. The public courts of justice and the private dispute resolution methods had to judge and punish those behaviours that threatened the rights and social values protected by law: the physical integrity, the property, the honour, the moral standards, the social customs, the religious beliefs, the truth and public peace. From mid-15th century onwards, the property-related offences are progressively more quoted in the documentation, and they became the most perpetrated type of offence by the end of that century, while the number of criminal acts against corporal integrity did not change substantially over the same period. The existence of aggravating, attenuating and exonerating circumstances attending the commission of a crime was taken into consideration by the judges, and the social body accepted or rejected certain expressions of violence, depending on the legitimacy of the methods used and the validity of the offender’s motivation. The criminal activity had a strong male predominance, and all social strata were involved in crime. The individuals and collectives who violated the law, imposed by the feudal powers and the social norms accepted by the community, were caused by personal interests, daily contexts, the cultural frameworks and the modes of social interaction.