Modeling systems of sentencing in early inquisition trials: Crime, social connectivity, and punishment in the register of Peter Seila (1241–2)

Despite significant research on the techniques of repression employed by medieval inquisitors against religious dissidents, the case-level influences on the penances they meted out are understood only vaguely: the extent to which sentencing “systems” existed is unknown. To overcome this, we apply formal methods – an exploratory analysis supported by crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, and statistical modeling founded on multiple linear regression – to the large and historically significant register of Peter Seila (1241–2), captured as structured data <i>via</i> a statement-based approach entitled “Computer-Assisted Semantic Text Modelling” (CASTEMO). The results show that Peter systematically weighted different types of crimes and dissident interactions when sentencing; they do not suggest, however, that he was influenced by accomplicity or kinship among the sentenced.

尽管学界已针对中世纪宗教裁判官针对宗教异见者所采用的镇压手段开展了大量研究，但针对影响其判处苦行刑罚的个案层面因素，目前仅存在模糊认知：所谓审判“体系”在多大程度上真实存在，尚且无确切定论。为填补这一研究空白，我们将两类规范研究方法应用于具有重要历史价值的大型彼得·塞拉（1241–1242年）审判登记册数据集：一是以清晰集定性比较分析（Crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis）支撑的探索性分析，二是基于多元线性回归的统计建模，该数据集通过名为“计算机辅助语义文本建模（Computer-Assisted Semantic Text Modelling，CASTEMO）”的基于语句的处理方法被转换为结构化数据。研究结果表明，彼得在量刑时会系统性地对不同类型的犯罪及异见者的互动情况赋予差异化权重，但上述结果并未显示，他的量刑决策会受到被审判者之间共犯关系或亲属关系的影响。