Conclusion

Abstract

The concluding chapter draws together and highlights the main themes and findings of the preceding chapters. The multifarious ways in which suicides were received and investigated by the communities and the lower courts show that these exceptional crimes were treated inconsistently and selectively in an era when the judicature was becoming in general more centrally controlled and professionalized. The law on suicide was difficult to follow and apply in practice. Regardless of the harsh condemnation of self-killing by the authorities, diverse views on various degrees of criminal and moral culpability and more lenient attitudes existed, as manifest in the local treatment of suicides both outside and inside the courtrooms.