Audiozobe

In another, more dramatic, example of the community rejection of selfish business practices, murder was seen as the only response severe enough to deal with a pompous businessman, Uly Mörnach. He was a property owner who insisted he had the power and the right to do what he wanted with his property. As Stokes found by sifting through the archives of the city of Basel, “He insisted on a kind of individualistic … perspective on his own life.”

Although his impressive property holdings might be admired in today’s culture, he was seen as downright despicable by his medieval peers for the way he threw his financial weight around. In one instance, Stokes found, he beat an old woman when he discovered her taking water from his meadow. When the woman pressed charges, Mörnach lied about the matter in court, and laughed about it later to his friends.