Rege Ribaldum: Participatory Punishment in the Pursuit of Urban Justice in Late Medieval Southern France.

This article examines the concept of popular control in the administration of criminal punishment in late medieval Toulouse, emphasizing the active role of urban communities in shaping and enforcing justice, particularly in cases involving contested sexuality. It focuses on a 1332 incident where Berengaria Vitalis was subjected to a customary public punishment called the rege ribaldum—requiring a criminal to run through the city as a form of humiliation—and how the crowd’s intervention escalated the sentence into a violent act of communal retribution. The study highlights how neighbors surveilled and corrected both offenders and officials, reflecting unwritten social codes and collective expectations of moral behavior, especially regarding the protection of vulnerable youth. It also explores jurisdictional disputes between municipal and royal authorities, illustrating tensions between formal legal processes and grassroots enforcement. Overall, the article reveals that public punishment in medieval urban settings was a negotiated spectacle involving both official sanction and popular participation, serving to restore social order and communal values.