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Lecture Powerpoint

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Seminar Questions

• How far did forms of justice change during the early modern period?
• How significant was the role of torture in early modern trials?
• What did early modern executions seek to convey to their audience?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of judicial records for an understanding of early modern violence?

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Required Reading

All students should read

Beam, Sara, 'Violence and Justice in Europe: Punishment, Torture and Execution', in Robert J. Antony, Stuart Carroll, and Caroline Dodds Pennock, eds, (Cambridge, 2020), pp. 389-407.

AND one of the following items:

• Gioia, Cristina, '', in Steven G. Ellis and Lud’a Klusáková (eds), Imaging Frontiers, Contesting Identities (Pisa, 2007), pp. 93-107.
• Mantecon, Tomas A., 'Justice and the Confines of the Law in Early Modern Spain', in Griet Vermeesch, Manon van der Heijden, and Jaco Zuijderduijn, eds, (London, 2019), pp. 165-182.
• Rebecchini, Guido, 'Rituals of Justice and the Construction of Space in Sixteenth-Century Rome', 16 (2013), 153-79
• Taylor, Scott K., (New Haven, 2008), Chapter 2.

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E-Resources

• [A fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names.]
• [This project provides abstracts, calendars and transcript of the surviving material relating to 738 cases heard in the Court of Chivalry (otherwise known as the Court of Honour or the Earl Marshal’s Court) between 1634 and 1640]
• Foxe, John,
• Sharpe, J. and Dickinson, R., [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], July 2002. SN: 4429.
• Jusepe de Ribera, The Duel of Isabella de Carazzi and Diambra de PottinellaLink opens in a new window, 1636.
• The estrapade/strappado from Jean Milles de Souvigny, Praxis criminis persequendi (Paris, 1541)
• The water torture from Joost de Damhoudere, Praxis rerum criminalium (Antwerp, 1556)
• The movable iron cage from Sebastian Munster, Cosmographie Universelle (Basle, 1552)
• Beheading from Sebastian Munster, Cosmographie Universelle (Basle, 1552)
• Empalement from Sebastian Munster, Cosmographie Universelle (Basle, 1552)
• Public executions from Jean Milles de Souvigny, Praxis criminis persequendi (Paris, 1541)
• The gibbet of Montfaucon from the Topography of Paris, in the Cabinet des Estampes.
• The Manner of Execution at TyburnLink opens in a new window 
• The site of the Tyburn TreeLink opens in a new window

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Further Reading

Arnade, Peter, and Walter Prevenier, Honor, Vengeance, and Social Trouble: Pardon Letters in the Burgundian Low Countries (Ithaca, NY, 2015)

Astarita, Tommaso, Village Justice: Community, Family, and Popular Culture in Early Modern Italy (Baltimore, 1999)

Bailey, Joanne, and Loreen Giese, '', The History of the Family 18 (2013), 289-305

Barahona, Renato, (Toronto, 2003)

Barbalet, Jack, ',"' Sociology 55 (2021), 56–70.

Billaçois, François, , trans. Trista Selous (New Haven, 1990)

Boes, Maria R., (Farnham, 2013)

Bonzon, Anne, and Diane Roussel, "", trans. Nadine Wilstead, Criminocorpus. Revue hypermédia 26 | 2024.

Bowen, Lloyd, (Woodbridge, 2021)

Brown, Keith, M., (Edinburgh, 1986)

Carroll, Stuart, (Oxford, 2006)

Carroll, Stuart, ed., (Basingstoke, 2007)

Carroll, Stuart, '', Past & Present 233/1 (2016),101–142.

Cohen, Paul, '', Renaissance Quarterly 69/3 (2016), 899-939

Cohen, Thomas V., (Chicago, 2004)

Cohen, Thomas V., and Elizabeth S. Cohen, (Toronto, 1993)

Cummins, Stephen, '', Social Science History 48/4 (2024), 621–41

Davis, Natalie Zemon, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1987)

Dülmen, Richard van, , trans. Elisabeth Neu (Oxford, 1990)

Durston, Gregory J., (Hook, 2012)

Evans, Richard J., (Oxford, 1996)

Faggion, Lucien, 'Violence, Rites and Social Regulation in the Venetian Terra Firma in the Sixteenth Century', in Jonathan Davies (ed.), (Farnham, 2013), pp. 185-204.

Faggion, Lucien, and Christophe Regina, eds, Récit et justice (France, Italie, Espagne, XIVe-XIXe siècles) (Aix-en-Provence, 2014)

Farr, James R., A Tale of Two Murders: Passion and Power in Seventeenth-Century France (Durham, NC, 2005)

Friedland, Paul, Seeing Justice Done: The Age of Spectacular Capital Punishment in France (Oxford, 2012)

Gaskill, Malcolm, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2000)

Gaskill, Malcolm, ',' Social History 23 (1998), 1-30.

Geltner, Guy, The Medieval Prison: A Social History (Princeton, 2008)

Greenshields, Malcolm, (University Park, PA, 1994)

Harrington, Joel F., The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century (New York, 2014)

Hitchcock, Tim, and Robert Shoemaker, Tales from the Hanging Court (London, 2006)

Hughes, Steven C., '', Journal of Medieval Military History 5 (2007), 99–152.

Kiernan. V.G., (Oxford, 1988)

Klemp, P. J., The Theatre of Death: Rituals of Justice from the English Civil Wars to the Restoration (London, 2016)

Kollmann, Nancy S., Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia (Cambridge, 2012)

Kollmann, Nancy S., ‘Crime and Punishment in the Russian Empire’, in Robert J. Antony, Stuart Carroll, and Caroline Dodds Pennock, eds, (Cambridge, 2020), 331-49.

Lidman, Satu, '', The History of the Family 18 (2013), 238-60.

Lord Smail, Daniel, '', Comparative Studies in Society and History 54/1 (2012), 7–34.

MacMillan, Ken, (ed.), Stories of True Crime in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 2015)

Madden, Amanda G., '"Una causa civile": Vendetta Violence and Governing Elites in Early-Modern Modena', in Jonathan Davies (ed.), (Farnham, 2013), pp. 205-223.

Merback, Mitchell B., (London, 2001)

Muir, Edward, (Baltimore, 1998)

Muravyeva, Marianna, '', The History of the Family 18 (2103), 227-37

Muravyeva, Marianna, '"Till Death Us Do Part": spousal homicide in early modern RussiaLink opens in a new window', The History of the Family 18 (2013), 306-30

Peltonen, Markku, (Cambridge, 2003)

Perry, Mary Elizabeth, (Hanover, NH, 1980)

Peters, Edward, (Philadelphia, 1996)

Povolo, Claudio, 'Liturgies of Violence: Social Control and Power Relationships in the Republic of Venice between the 16th and 18th Centuries', in Eric R. Dursteler (ed.), (Leiden, 2013), pp. 513-42. Brill e-book

Quint, David, ‘Duelling and Civility in Sixteenth-Century Italy’, 7 (1997), 231-275.

Roodenburg, Herman, and Pieter Spierenburg, eds, (Ohio, 2004)

Rose, Colin, '“', Crime, History and Socieities 16/2 (2012), 5-27.

Rowbotham, Judith, et al. (eds), Shame, Blame, and Culpability: Crime and Violence in the Modern State (London, 2014)

Ruff, Julius R., (Cambridge, 2001), Chapter 3

Schmidt, Franz, A Hangman's Diary: The Journal of Master Franz Schmidt, Public Executioner of Nuremberg, 1573-1617, ed. Albrecht Keller, trans. C.V. Calvert and A. W. Gruner, with an introductory essay by C. Calvert (London, 1928)

Silverman, Lisa, Tortured Subjects: Pain, Truth, and the Body in Early Modern France (Chicago, 2001)

Spierenburg, Pieter, (New Brunswick, 1991)

Spierenburg, Pieter, (Cambridge, 1984)

Spierenburg, Pieter, Violence and Punishment: Civilizing the Body Through Time (Cambridge, 2013)

Stolleis, Michael, et al, eds, (Frankfurt am Main, 1996)

Tersptra, Nicholas, The Art of Executing Well (Kirksville, 2008)

Toivo, Raisa Maria, '', The History of the Family 18 (2013), 331-48.

Weber, Max, ‘Politics as a Vocation,’ in H.H. Gerth and Wright Mills, eds, (London: Routledge, 1970), 77–128

Weber, Max, ‘Religious Rejections of the World and their Directions,’ in H.H. Gerth and Wright Mills, eds, (London: Routledge, 1970), 323–59.

Zmora, Hillary, (Cambridge, 1997)