Acht und Bann im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert

The ‘Imperial ban’ (Reichsacht) was the secular equivalent to the excommunication of Canon law. The term ‘Acht und Bann’ signified that someone had been excommunicated and banned, and that hence, for secular as well as ecclesiastical authorities, the individual had lost all his rights and titles. Already in 1220, Frederic II accorded with Honorius III to additionally impose his ban on excommunicated heretics for his imperial coronation (MGH Const. 2, pp. 107f). In the same year, he promised his ecclesiastical princes to avoid contact with heretics. In other cases, the emperor was free to add his support to the excommunication. The emperors could add their ban to excommunication and did so apparently for political reason, but overall did not want to diminish their possibilities. Dorothee Mußgnug therefore devotes her book to the politics of imperial bans in the reigns of Sigismund, Frederic III, Maximilian I and Charles V. She starts by explaining the technical terms, unfortunately, without using the Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch or its resources at Heidelberg. Furthermore, there is only one nineteenth century reference to Canon law and its excommunication, so that the legal background of her question—neither in Canon nor in secular law—is not explored. She does not explain the intention of her study or why she set up this list of cases. We can only assume that she wants to demonstrate the political background of all the cases she could find and the wide range of possible reactions in this period.

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