Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Mental-Historical Investigations of Basic Human Problems and Social Responses

Albrecht Classen, Connie Scarborough, Albrecht Classen, Connie Scarborough

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9783110294514
• eBook ISBN: 9783110294583
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Literature

All societies are constructed, based on specific rules, norms, and laws. Hence, all ethics and morality are predicated on perceived right or wrong behavior, and much of human culture proves to be the result of a larger discourse on vices and virtues, transgression and ideals, right and wrong. The topics covered in this volume, addressing fundamental concerns of the premodern world, deal with allegedly criminal, or simply wrong behavior which demanded punishment. Sometimes this affected whole groups of people, such as the innocently persecuted Jews, sometimes individuals, such as violent and evil princes. The issue at stake here embraces all of society since it can only survive if a general framework is observed that is based in some way on justice and peace. But literature and the visual arts provide many examples of open and public protests against wrongdoings, ill-conceived ideas and concepts, and stark crimes, such as theft, rape, and murder. In fact, poetic statements or paintings could carry significant potentials against those who deliberately transgressed moral and ethical norms, or who even targeted themselves.

Table of contents

• Classen, Albrecht#Scarborough, Connie|Introduction. Crime, Transgression, and Deviancy: Behaviors that Defines Us All
• Ribémont, Bernard|Chapter 1. Le ‘crime épique’ et sa punition: quelques exemples (XIIe-XIIIe siècles)
• Niiranen, Susanna|Chapter 2. “I know how to be a whore and thief” The poet’s reputation: troubadours – ancestors of poètes maudits?
• Clason, Christopher R.|Chapter 3. The Law – Letter and Spirit: Language, Transgression and Justice In Three Medieval German Epic Poems
• Hahn, Stacey|Chapter 4. Crime, Punishment and the Hybrid in Medieval French Romance: Robert the Devil and Geoffrey Big Tooth
• Taylor, Scott L.|Chapter 5. Judicium Dei, vulgaris popularisque sensus: Survival of Customary Justice and Resistance to its Displacement by the “New” Ordines iudiciorum as Evidenced by Francophonic Literature of the High Middle Ages
• Classen, Albrecht|Chapter 6. Crime and Violence in the Middle Ages: The Cases of Heinrich der Glichezare’s Reinhard Fuchs and Wernher der Gartenære’s Helmbrecht
• Gough, John|Chapter 7. The Function of Projected Pain: The Poetry of François Villon and the Gift of Self
• Jost, Jean E.|Chapter 8. Retribution in Gamelyn: A Case in the Courts
• Komornicka, Jolanta N.|Chapter 9. Contra Signum Nostrum: The Symbolism of Lèse-majesté under Philip VI Valois
• Scarborough, Connie L.|Chapter 10. Women as Victims and Criminals in the Siete Partidas
• Ruiz, Maria Cecilia|Chapter 11. Theft in Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor
• Turning, Patricia|Chapter 12. Competition for the Prisoner’s Body: Wardens and Jailers in Fourteenth-Century Southern France
• Wiedl, Birgit|Chapter 13. The Host on the Doorstep: Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders in an Alleged Host Desecration in Fourteenth-Century Austria
• Pigg, Daniel F.|Chapter 14. Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?: Chaucer’s Physician’s Tale and the Worlds of Judgment
• Ross, Lia B.|Chapter 15. Deviancy in the Late Middle Ages: The Crimes and Punishment of Gilles de Rais
• Beusterien, John|Chapter 16. The Celebratory Conical Hat in La Celestina
• Llewellyn, Kathleen M.|Chapter 17. Equal Opportunity Vengeance in the Heptaméron of Marguerite de Navarre
• Lombart, Nicolas|Chapter 18. Crimes et Châtiments d’Exception en France au Temps des Guerres de Religion: l’Utopie Judiciaire des Commentaires de Monluc (livres V à VII)
• Moffitt Peacock, Martha|Chapter 19. The Amsterdam Spinhuis and the “Art” of Correction
• Willard, Thomas|Chapter 20. Pimping for the Fairy Queen: Some Cozeners in Shakespeare’s England
• Bjaï, Denis|Chapter 21. Réflexions de Montaigne sur le châtiment des criminels
• Coudert, Allison P.|Chapter 22. The Ultimate Crime: Cannibalism in Early Modern Minds and Imaginations
• Luef, Evelyne|Chapter 23. Punishment Post Mortem – The Crime of Suicide in Early Modern Austria and Sweden
• List of Illustrations
• Contributors
• Index
• Acknowledgment and Gratitude