TO FINE OR TO PUNISH IN THE LATE-MIDDLE-AGES - A TIME-SERIES ANALYSISOF JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION IN NIVELLES, 1424-1536

Time-series techniques are used to analyse long-historical data on the budget of the Court of Nivelles (Belgium) in the late Middle Ages. Th e unidirectional causality from receipts to expenditures supports the idea that this mediaeval system was a fine-focused (tax-oriented) cont rol system. However, empirical evidence on the presence of changes in receipt collection around 1520 favours the hypothesis of the decline o f the mediaeval, urban-based, tax-oriented system and its transformati on into a system based on punishment.