In the first part of this paper, I will offer an overview of criminal law in the Holy Roman Empire and its use in various jurisdictions. I will concentrate specifically on adultery and bigamy and examine the occasions when both practices, considered a grievous sin by the Christian worldview were incorporated into territorial criminal laws. Considered a sin on the one hand, a misdemeanor or capital crime on the other, several authorities felt entitled to prosecute and punish the offenders in different ways. In the second part, turning from legal theory to practice, I confine the scope of investigation to the Archduchy of Austria below the Enns. I then explore the ways in which various authorities were either cooperating with or alternatively ignoring the juridical competence of the other institutions. In a close reading of two bigamy cases from the beginning of the seventeenth century I will show that the same offences committed by different genders were treated differently. In the last part I will discuss the pleas for clemency and their place within the criminal legal system. Finally, I end with a brief look at bigamy and its criminal prosecution in the eighteenth century and then present my concluding remarks.

Sünde, Vergehen, Verbrechen, Kriminalität, Geschichte, Ehebruch, Bigamie, Inzucht, Geschlecht, Geschlechtergeschichte, Kriminalitätsgeschichte

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