Petty treason or petit treason was an offence under the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

in which a person killed or otherwise violated the authority of a social superior, other than the king. In England and Wales, petty treason ceased to be a distinct offence from

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the ...

by virtue of the Offences against the Person Act 1828. It was abolished in Ireland in 1829. It never existed in Scotland. It has also been abolished in other common-law countries.

Element of betrayal

The element of betrayal is the reason why this crime was considered worse than an ordinary murder; medieval and post-medieval society rested on a framework in which each person had his or her appointed place and such murders were seen as threatening this framework. Many people had somebody subordinate to them and feared the consequences if the murder of superiors was not punished harshly.

Codification in English law

The common law offence was codified in the

Treason Act 1351 The Treason Act 1351 is an Act of the Parliament of England which codified and curtailed the common law offence of treason. No new offences were created by the statute. It is one of the earliest English statutes still in force, although it has b ...

. Under that Act, petty treason was an aggravated form of

. It consisted of: # a wife killing her husband, # a clergyman killing his

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'pre ...

, # a servant killing his master or mistress, or his master's wife. The Act abolished three other forms of petty treason which had existed under common law: # a wife attempting to kill her husband, # a servant forging his master's

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...

, or # a servant committing

adultery Adultery (from Latin ''adulterium'') is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal ...

with his master's wife or daughter.

Counterfeit To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

ing gold or silver coin was also petty treason before the 1351 Act elevated this to high treason. However the method of execution was not changed.

Penalty

The punishment for a man convicted of petty treason was to be drawn to the place of execution and

hanged Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The '' Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging ...

, but not quartered as in the case of high treason. The punishment for a woman was to be

burned at the stake Death by burning (also known as immolation) is an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment f ...

without being drawn there (the penalty for high treason was drawing and burning). In later years the law offered a modicum of mercy to women who were to be executed in this fashion: the executioner was equipped with a cord passed around the victim's throat and, standing outside of the fire, would pull it tight, strangling her before the flames could reach her. In a few instances, however, this could go wrong, with the cord burning through and the victim burning alive; the ensuing scandals contributed to the abolition of this punishment and its replacement by hanging in 1790.

Defences and rules of procedure

The

defence of

provocation Provocation, provoke or provoked may refer to: * Provocation (legal), a type of legal defense in court which claims the "victim" provoked the accused's actions * Agent provocateur, a (generally political) group that tries to goad a desired re ...

, by which a verdict of murder could be reduced to

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

, was also available in petty treason trials. The rules of evidence and procedure in petty treason trials were the same as in high treason trials, except that the

Treason Act 1695 The Treason Act 1695 (7 & 8 Will 3 c 3) is an Act of the Parliament of England which laid down rules of evidence and procedure in high treason trials. It was passed by the English Parliament but was extended to cover Scotland in 1708 and Irel ...

did not apply to petty treason. Petty treason also differed from high treason in that the legal defence of

benefit of clergy In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: ''privilegium clericale'') was originally a provision by which clergymen accused of a crime could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ec ...

was available for petty treason until 1496, Benefit of Clergy Act 1496 (12 Hen. 7 c. 7) whereas it was never available for high treason.

References

Hale's ''History of Pleas of the Crown'' (1800 ed.) vol. 1, chapter XXIX
(from

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

).
Hawkin's ''Treatise of Pleas of the Crown'' (1824 ed.) vol.1, chapter XIV
(from

).
East's ''Treatise of Pleas of the Crown'' (1806 Ed) vol.1, Chapter V, Part VII (sections 98 to 104) (pp 336–339)
(from

).
''Coke's Institutes'' (1797 Ed.), Part 3, Chapter 2 (pp 19 to 36)
(from

). * Chitty's Practical Treatise on Criminal Law (1819 Ed.), vol.3, paragraphs 742 to 745 (pp 176 to 179) (preliminary notes

and paragraphs 779 to 781 (pp 211–214) (specimen indictments

(from

).
''Blackstone's Commentaries'' (1867 ed.), Book 4, Chapter 14, paragraphs 203 and 204
(See also 1791 ed. pages 202 to 20

and the 1825 ed

– the commentary in footnotes differs) (from

). *J.G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages, CUP, (2004 ed.), Appendix I

(from

). {{History of English criminal law English criminal law Treason Murder