Medieval Crime and Social ControlBarbara A. Hanawalt and David Wallace
Anteprima del libro
Crime
is a matter of interpretation, and never was this truer than in he
Middle Ages, when societies faced with new ideas and pressures were
continually forced to rethink what a crime was -- and what was a
crime. This collection undertakes a thorough exploration of shifting
definitions of crime and changing attitudes toward social control in
medieval Europe.
These
essays reveal how various forces in medieval society interacted and
competed in interpreting and influencing mechanisms for social
control. Drawing on a wide range of historical and literary sources
-- legal treatises, court cases, statutes, poems, romances, and comic
tales -- the contributors consider topics including fear of crime,
rape and violence against women, revenge and condemnations of crime,
learned dispute about crime and social control, and legal and
political struggles over hunting rights.
