Control instituțional și răspundere juridică în Moldova, în primele trei decenii ale secolului al XIX-lea
Institutional Control and Legal Liability in Moldova, in the First Three Decades of the 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: Our research addresses a topic less frequently explored in Romanian historiography, yet one that is essential for understanding the legal system of the Romanian premodern period, namely the practice of sending offenders to monasteries for supervision, penitence, and “correction.” This measure was applied to individuals guilty of crimes with extremely serious consequences for others. The study examines two interdependent issues: on the one hand, the means of institutional control exercised by judicial authorities (the Prince, the Princely Council, the Criminal Department), and on the other hand, the legal liability of offenders (men or women) for the acts they committed. The historical sources used in this study mostly date from the first three decades of the nineteenth century. Their analysis shows that confinement in a monastery was a form of punishment that may also be regarded as a canonical or moral-religious measure, functionally equivalent to imprisonment in terms of the restriction of liberty and isolation, but different in purpose and context. The emphasis was placed more on moral and religious re-education than on purely punitive punishment.

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