banzmal (OSw) banzmall (OGu) noun

This word is used in the provincial laws of Sweden and Gotland to refer to a crime subject to full excommunication (ban) (q.v.) from the Christian community, sometimes for a specific period, until sufficient penance had been done, or the prescribed fine paid. It also refers to the procedure of pronouncing the excommunication, for which the rural dean or bishop was paid an amount by the excommunicate varying between the laws. While the person was under this ban, their very presence in the church during Mass could force the immediate abandonment of the proceedings. Simply being in the company of an excommunicate could also render one liable for punishment. The crimes that resulted in such exclusion were those that were aggravated by being committed on a holy day or on church premises, particularly killings or actions against a cleric. Such crimes were considered to have harmed the Church body itself. In DL the punishment is served in particular on men who committed bestiality and women who practised witchcraft. In GL excommunication was the punishment for Sabbath breaking. The word banzmal occurs in VmL, but in a passage that differs between the various manuscripts and is the subject of a number of later emendations in the main manuscript. It seems in this instance to be an error for a word meaning ‘spiritual case’, one relating to moral laxity, where the punishment was usually a fine rather than excommunication.

case of ban OSw YVgL Urb
case of excommunication OSw ÖgL Kkb
OSw YVgL Kkb
excommunication OSw DL Kkb
excommunication case OSw DL Kkb
OSw HL Kkb
OSw SdmL Kkb
OSw UL Kkb
pronouncing excommunication OGu GL A 8
OSw UL Kkb Refs:

KLNM s.v.v. excommunicatio og interdict, kommunion, kyrkobalkar, kyrkostraff, sacrilegium; Lexikon des Mittelalters s.v. bannum; Peel 2015, 104 note 8/17−19; Schlyter 1877, s.v. banzmal; SL DL, 20 notes 76 and 77; SL GL, 252 notes 8 and 9 to chapter 8; SL UL, 39 note 54, 40 notes 67 and 68, 41 note 83; SL VmL, 29 notes 76 and 77; SL ÖgL, 30 note 65