Law, Justice, and Torture - Oh My
Crime and punishment in the medieval world seems bonkers to modern sensibilities, but it probably wasn’t exactly as deranged as you might think.
It starts with law. If there’s no law, then there’s anarchy, which means that the meanest / toughest bully decides what’s right and wrong. That is bad for everybody, except maybe the strongman.
Pretty much every great medieval king would issue or reissue a law code. Whether Justinian in the Byzantine Empire, or Charlemagne in Frankia, or Alfred the Great in England, or Alfonso the Wise in Spain, rulers wanted to put their stamp on the law, which usually went back to Roman law.
Law was sometimes understood through tradition, even if it wasn’t written down. Ancient Germanic law had wergild, or “man-price,” compensation paid by the guilty to the injured, or in case of death, to their family.
But law didn’t mean “equality under the law” for medieval people. The church had its own law and its own courts for priests and monks. Nobles and clergy had legal privileges that held them to a different code of conduct from peasants.
The wheels came off for medieval trials. The accused was assumed guilty, but compurgation allowed them to swear an oath of innocence and get others to swear it as well, then let the magistrate decide if they all were telling the truth. If earthly rulers were unable to determine guilt, then God could decide the outcome in a trial by ordeal or trial by combat. For real.
There were many types of trial by ordeal. You might have to plunge your hand into boiling water to see if your burned fingers healed properly. You might hold a red hot iron to see if those burns healed. You might be chucked into a lake. If you float, you’re guilty. If you sink, you must be innocent. Yay, you’re innocent! Hope your neighbors can fish you out of the water quickly…
Trial by combat was pretty straightforward. Two guys would fight, and God would show who was in the right by granting him victory over the other. You could get a champion to fight for you, but getting paid to fight was frowned upon.
[Image credit: 20th Century Studios - The climax of the 2021 movie The Last Duel features a trial by combat between two knights. Matt Damon's character is obviously guilty… guilty of having a sweet mullet!]
Torture was not invented in the medieval era. In the Roman Empire, slaves were REQUIRED to be tortured for their testimony to be accepted in court. In the medieval justice system, torture was used to get a confession from someone who was assumed to be guilty. Most of the modern ideas of the medieval torture chamber actually emerged later, in the 1500s and beyond.
Medieval concepts of law and justice might seem bananas today, but they were influenced by ancient traditions and precedent. The concept that one is innocent until proven guilty emerged in later centuries, and it’s a foundation that you’re lucky to have today. Except on social media. That battleground is all about medieval justice.
Lucky for you, torture is not a part of modern corporate world, even if a three-hour videoconference can feel like cruel and unusual punishment. But there is one thing that HR invented in the 20th century that has a lot of parallels to medieval torture described above, and that’s the dreaded Performance Improvement Plan, or PIP.
In theory, the PIP helps employees who are not meeting job performance goals understand where they are falling short and what they need to do to improve. They usually have a timeframe of 30 or 60 or 90 days where the employee will meet weekly with their manager and/or HR business partner to assess how they are not meeting expectations outlined in this highly formal document. Yes, tears are often involved.
In practice, many companies, especially large ones, use PIPs as a precursor to firing someone. The PIP is designed to show why someone was fired, not how they can improve. Why go to all this trouble? Lawsuits. Companies use PIPs to protect themselves from wrongful termination claims made by fired employees.
If your boss puts you on a PIP, you might be hurt, angry, and maybe even scared. You’re probably right to feel all those things. But put that aside and ask them directly if you can emerge victorious from the PIP. They will almost certainly say “yes,” and that’s probably not true.
They’re not being malicious; they’re trying to make you feel better, or at least assuage their own guilt. It’s up to you if you want to be dragged kicking and screaming to the executioner’s bench or approach the scaffold with grace, but likely the axe awaits you either way.
If you’re a manager or in HR, maybe reconsider your use of the PIP. Instead of giving the doomed false hope for 90 days, maybe just offer three months of severance pay. The financial impact is lower for the company, as less time is wasted on the process. And it’s sooooo much easier for everyone involved.
If it’s not working out, and you think it never will, just be a grown up and say so. Clear is kind. The PIP ritual is medieval.
