Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke …

Years: 1786 - 1786
November
Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany (the future Emperor Leopold II), promulgates a penal code on November 30, 1786, that abolishes the death penalty and orders the destruction of all the instruments for capital execution in his land.

Torture is also banned.

This makes his country the first state to abolish the death penalty.

November 30 is therefore commemorated today by three hundred cities around the world, as Cities for Life Day.

His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbs the deeply rooted convictions of his people and brings him into collision with the Pope, is not successful.

He is unable to secularize the property of the religious houses or to put the clergy entirely under the control of the lay power.

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