Wiguläus Xaverius Aloysius Kreittmayr, since 1745 Freiherr von Kreittmayr (14 December 1705 – 27 October 1790) was a Bavarian jurist and public official who served as head of the public administration (''Wirklicher Geheimer Staatskanzler'', state

chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

) of the Electorate of Bavaria since 1758. Von Kreittmayr's lasting work was as a legislator. A leading member of the Bavarian civil service since 1725, he drafted the Bavarian criminal code (1751), code of civil procedure (1753) and civil code (''

Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis The ''Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis'' was a civil code enacted in the Electorate of Bavaria in 1756. It was drafted entirely by the Bavarian chancellor, Wiguläus von Kreittmayr, and was named after Maximilian III Joseph. Written in Germa ...

'', 1756). His criminal code, which remained in force until 1813, reflected pre-Enlightenment Catholic views and proved inadequate after the second half of the 18th century. But his civil codifications lasted (although by then very dated) until 1869 and 1900 respectively. His extensive commentaries on Bavarian civil and public law are an important source of legal history and reflect von Kreittmayr's practical and realistic understanding of law. In 1958, the city of Munich commissioned a bronze statue of von Kreittmayr. But protests by human rights lawyers, who noted that von Kreittmayr's criminal code introduced

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

in Bavaria just as other jurisdictions began to abolish it, prevented its installation. The statue was gifted to von Kreittmayr's home village of Offenstetten.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kreittmayr, Wigulaus von Bavarian nobility Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences People from the Electorate of Bavaria Jurists from Bavaria 1705 births 1790 deaths