---
title: "Bloody Code"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "concept"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Bloody Code"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["capital punishment (Georgian England)","grand larceny","pious perjury","Leon Radzinowicz","William Blackstone"]
---


The retrospective nickname for the body of eighteenth-century English statutes that made an increasing number of offenses — overwhelmingly property crimes — punishable by death, pushing the count of capital offenses from about fifty in 1688 to roughly 200-223 by the reform era of 1819-1828. The name describes the statutory wave itself, distinct from the older common-law grand-larceny line it was layered on top of — see [[entity-grand-larceny]]. Its severity was real on the statute books and routinely undercut in practice by jurors who undervalued stolen goods to dodge a mandatory hanging — see [[entity-pious-perjury]].

## References
- [[claim-englands-bloody-code-made-petty-property-theft-a-capital-crime]]
- [[claim-georgian-juries-undervalued-stolen-goods-to-avoid-the-death-penalty]]
- [[claim-12-pence-grand-larceny-threshold-is-common-law-not-a-bloody-code-statute]]