This chapter returns to the theme of Chapter 7 and argues that church, town and territorial advocates during the period 1250 to 1500 were accused of committing many of the same types of violent acts as advocates of the preceding period, further challenging medieval historians’ arguments about the rise of government and bureaucracy during this period. It also calls into question scholars’ claims about the emergence of bourgeois society as marking a break with older, corrupt practices of justice and protection. It begins with a general survey of the evidence for advocatial violence between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and then focuses on three case studies to highlight continuity with earlier centuries. One case study concerns the territorial advocate Peter of Hagenbach, who was tried and executed in 1474 for his abuses of power.

This chapter surveys the proliferation of different types of advocates from the late thirteenth century onward, not only in the German-speaking lands but also along the Baltic coast. It begins by demonstrating that, despite churches and monasteries’ efforts to buy back their advocacies from local nobles, many church advocacies survived throughout the period 1250 to 1500. It then turns to urban advocates, who were responsible for providing protection and exercising justice in many towns in the German-speaking lands, and territorial advocates, who exercised authority on some large conglomerations of royal and aristocratic estates. The central argument of this chapter is that these new types of advocates should not be understood as officeholders in developing bureaucracies. Although there is evidence of rulers trying to hold these advocates accountable, the sources on their local activities show them pursuing many of the same corrupt practices of justice and protection as advocates of the period before 1250.