Jan Ulrich Büttner

The Punishment of Blinding and the Life of the Blind

The article deals with a group of people who were deprived of their eyesight by private acts of force or by executions of lawful sentences. In early medieval texts blinding is frequently mentioned in connection with popes, kings, princes or bishops. However, since the High Middle Ages these dignitaries were increasingly spared the loss of their eyes. It may be said that on the whole, from the eighth to the twelfth century, blinding was overwhelmingly used to dispose of political adversaries, but did then rapidly turn into a criminal punishment. In the earliest Landfriedensordnungen of the late eleventh century, the loss of the perpetrator’s eyes crops up as punishment for breach of the peace, while later it was applied to a variety of more or less serious offences. The destiny of the blinded in the early Middle Ages is only highlighted by sketches of a few individual cases; for the High and late Middle Ages – apart from a few notable exceptions – it is only possible to reflect on the general situation of blind people in society, since the sources usually do not differentiate between those having lost their sight through human violence or due to other causes.

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