Sometimes referred to as “plague crosses” by the local population, there are still a few wayside shrines in the landscape of the Hengist region. Their actual meaning has been forgotten over the centuries, and yet they are – for the most part – representations of the borders between different areas of regional or local jurisdiction.
High jurisdiction over life and death was originally an exclusive right of the king, who, however, soon delegated it to counts and margraves. Their districts, also in the area of what was to become Styria, thus became their own legal districts. When Styria became a unified region in the 12th century, the sum of the landlords’ belongings and possessions became a unified legal territory.
In the High Middle Ages, the territorially extensive regional courts emerged from the county courts, from which numerous other special court districts split off and were connected with landed estates until the 17th century. The regional courts were responsible for “malefic crimes” worthy of capital punishment such as robbery, murder, manslaughter, abortion and infanticide, fornication, grand larceny, sorcery, sodomy and same-sex love, arson, lese majesty, blasphemy, coin forgery, but also notorious border violations. An arrested criminal had to be handed over by the seizing authority (village, market or town magistrate or landlord) within three days, dressed only in a belt, to the previously notified district judge – at fixed points such as bridges, border trees or wayside shrines. If the judge did not appear at the appointed hour, the criminal had to be released. In the case of privileged district courts, the sentence was passed by the authorized criminal judge; in the case of non-privileged district courts, it was passed by the “Bannrichter” (ban judge; a judge authorized to pronounce death sentences). The sentence was carried out either on the local gallows or with the sword in a public square.
In the west and south of the former Carinthian Mark, the old district courts of Wildon, Graz (Eggenberg) and St. Georgen (an der Stiefing) dominated, but they too were increasingly “perforated” by castle courts and other county courts. The border between the territorial courts of Wildon and St. Georgen was located at the third yoke of the Wildon bridge over the Mur river. In 1458, the Archbishop of Salzburg was also granted a small court district around Seggau Castle and the market town of Leibnitz by the sovereign; this district reached as far north as the “Teufelsgraben” (on the border of today’s municipalities of Lebring-St. Margarethen and Lang or Gralla and Tillmitsch) and was marked with a mighty wayside shrine, the district court cross still preserved today amidst gravel pits.
Text: Mag. Dr. Gernot P. Obersteiner, MAS
