Paper's abstract

Gérard D. Guyon, Religious Utopia and Criminal Trial. The Historical Inheritance: V-XVth century
The criminal trial cannot be separated from an history where the sacred, from the revenge side, is a constituting element of utopian nature. The Christian bequest is added to initial sacrifice contract and to the consequences of antic impiety. The probatory techniques, and avowal mainly, as well as the penalties, receive there a complete sacralisation. The trial winds up into a probatory certainty, in grief. The ritual quality of the judge leads him to be the coercive instrument of a never ceasing search for universal unanimity.

Key Words : utopia, christianism
t. 39, 1994 : p. 105-124