Vogtei

The terms Vogtei (bailiwick, lat. advocatia) and Vogt (reeve, lat. advocatus) are some of the most important in the medieval history of law.

Since early Carolingian times, bishops and monasteries were obliged to engage reeves, who mostly belonged to the high nobility. In the beginning, they had to maintain legal relations for the churches and monasteries with the outside world, whereas they later took over jurisdiction as well of the people living and working on church property. Therefore – according to the policy "The church does not thirst for blood" (ecclesia non sitit sanguinem) – the clergy was freed from exercising jurisdiction.

Within a few centuries the original role of thr reevesas protectors developed into a disruptive hunger of power, whereby their function was no longer perceived as protection but as suppression. Hence almost all archbishops and bishops tried to get rid of the secular reeves by episcopal jurisdiction in the 13^th century. Although this did not abolish the king’s protectorate Vogtei over the church of the realm, its essential judicial intervention possibilities were withdrawn..

• Volkert, Wilhelm: Adel bis Zunft: ein Lexikon des Mittelalters, Beck, München, 1991, page 255 f.
• Schmidt, H.J.: Vogt, Vogtei, in: Lexikon des Mittelalters VIII 1811-1814.

edited and translated by Susanne Kipke
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