For more than 400 years, the Schultheissen held office on Thun’s castle hill – here in the New Castle, as representatives of the Bernese state and successors of the dukes of Zähringen and the counts of Kyburg. They did not only govern: they held the power of the courts. But who was allowed to judge whom in Thun – and over what?

Town law, town court, blood court

Medieval justice distinguished between ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction, and between high and low courts. Within the town walls, Thun’s own town law applied: the town court – the «Twelve», or Small Council – sat under the count or his Schultheiss, first at the Freienhof inn, and after 1400 in the new courthouse that preceded today’s town hall. From 1358 the town’s jurisdiction included the blood court – judgments over life and death; from 1375 a Schultheiss appointed by Bern presided. No legal training was required: judicial office and political power were one and the same, and there was no separation of powers whatsoever.

«Who owns the gallows, owns the land»

On 5 April 1384, after the Burgdorf war, Bern bought castle, town and jurisdiction over Thun from the counts of Kyburg – including all places of judgment, «pillory and gallows». In 1471 the council of Bern drew the lines of its power once more, expressly reserving for itself the high and blood jurisdiction. The pillory and the gallows – which stood below the town between the common and the river Aare – were the most visible signs of that power. The high court judged capital crimes: murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery or arson, punishable by death, banishment or heavy fines. Everyday offences and disputes over property and debt went before the lower courts.

The Chorgericht: a court for morals

With the Reformation of 1528, the newly created moral courts – the Chorgerichte – took over from the former church courts in the Bernese lands. Thun, too, had one, presided over once again by the Schultheiss. It watched over marriage, family and conduct: fornication, adultery, drunkenness, breaking the Sabbath, and in grave cases heresy and witchcraft. Punishments ranged from admonition, fines and exclusion from communion to prison and banishment; death sentences had to be confirmed by the secular courts.

The long road to modern justice

Relations between Thun and Bern remained tense: in 1708 the town had its old liberties and its blood court confirmed; in 1741 Bern made clear that pardons were the state’s prerogative alone; and from 1778 every death sentence had to be sent to Bern for review before it could be pronounced. Under the Helvetic Republic (1798–1803), Thun even became the capital of the short-lived canton of Oberland, with its own cantonal court. The reforms of the nineteenth century finally brought the separation of powers – and the new district court took its seat exactly where the Schultheissen had once ruled: in the New Castle.

But who were the people who stood before these courts? That is where our research project begins: «Voices of the Forgotten» – with posts from the archives, your questions, and the possibility to support the research.