Meister Franz Schmidt beheaded, hanged, burned or drowned 361 people deemed criminals while he held the role of municipal executioner in Nuremberg between 1577 and 1617. Schmidt used torture to ...

A new investigation by a Cambridge University criminologist has revealed evidence of a 14th-century murder entangled in betrayal, scandal, and power struggles. Professor Manuel Eisner, head of the ...

From about 1150 onwards the monarchy began to play a much larger part in the management of the justice system in England. Of course, it would be several centuries before the legal system that we know ...