Joos de Damhouder

Who was Joos de Damhouder?

Joos de Damhouder, also referred to as Joost, Jost, Josse or Jodocus Damhouder, was a jurist from the Seventeen Provinces, whose works had a lasting influence on European criminal law.

Born in Bruges, de Damhouder studied law in Leuven and Orléans. After obtaining his doctorate in 1533, he practiced law as an advocate in Bruges. In 1537 he was appointed legal advisor of the city authorities, from which office he retired in 1550 to become clerk of the urban criminal court. In 1552 he was made a member of the Dutch Council of Finance by Mary of Habsburg, governor of the Netherlands, and held that office until 1575. He died 1581 in Antwerp, six years after his wife, with whom he had had three daughters and a son.

His principal work was the Praxis rerum criminalium, a manual on the practice of criminal law, which he almost entirely plagiarised from an unpublished text by Filips Wielant and from other works. The book was a great success and saw numerous translations in other European languages, partly due to de Damhouder's novel approach of illustrating the various crimes and procedural stages with woodcuts.