30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreHow were disputes settled?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Jed Hawkins: How did the Aztecs or Mayans settle disputes between people within their society? Did they have a nonviolent approach to problem-solving? (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
We feel we can do no better than quote word-for-word from the work of two world-class scholars, Frances F. Berdan and Michael E. Smith, from their 2021 book Everyday Life in the Aztec World, from their section on ‘Courts and Judges’:-
Most crimes and disputes were brought to a court for adjudication. There was a hierarchy of courts - the Codex Mendoza shows two levels. The lower level includes four judges, all with different but exalted titles, hearing and determining a case brought to them by three men and three women (perhaps a domestic dispute?) [see pic 1] That case was apparently appealed to a higher court located in Motecuhzoma’s palace; four judges also presided there. Sahagún (Florentine Codex Book 8) basically verifies this arrangement, mentioning procedures whereby cases heard in a lower court were sent to a higher court, and Diego Durán (The History of the Indies of New Spain) specifies several levels of ‘tribunals’ where cases were heard until they reached the ‘supreme council’.
That highest court [see pic 2], according to Alonso de Zorita (Life and Labour in Ancient Mexico), consisted of twelve judges, but different city-states may have constituted their courts differently. At this highest level at least, the judges were assisted by scribes who recorded every detail and by constables who did the judges’ bidding in collecting evidence or arresting offenders. Apparently, the judges of the lower courts could apprehend delinquents and criminals, collecting and assembling initial information on their cases. They left the final decisions and sentences to higher courts. The most dire or perhaps controversial cases were referred to the ruler, whose decision was final.
Source/quote:-
• Everyday Life in the Aztec World by Frances F. Berdan and Michael E. Smith, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 198-200.
Pictures source:-
• Images from the Codex Mendoza scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, London, 1938.
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