Introduction

Final Year modules place greater emphasis on the use of primary sources than modules in the First and Second Years. This is the first of two seminars in which we examine the primary sources for early modern crime and punishment. This week we will look at court records, pardon tales, pamphlets, press reports, chronicles, histories, and journals.

Seminar Questions

How are early modern crimes and punishments represented in court records, pardon tales, press reports, chronicles, and journals?

What do court records, parson tales, press reports, chronicles, and journals reveal about contemporary perceptions of early modern crime and punishment?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of these sources for the historian of crime and punishment in early modern Europe?

Required Reading

Each student should read:

EITHER Thomas V. Cohen and Elizabeth S. Cohen, eds and trans., Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials Before the Papal MagistratesLink opens in a new window (Toronto, 1993), Introduction and two of the cases.

OR Ken MacMillan, Stories of True Crime in Tudor and Stuart EnglandLink opens in a new window (London, 2015), Introduction and three of the cases.

OR Franz Schmidt, A Hangman's Diary: The Journal of Master Franz Schmidt, Public Executioner of Nuremberg, 1573-1617Link opens in a new window, ed. Albrecht Keller, trans. C. Calvert and A.W. Gruner (New York, 2015), Introduction and The Diary.

AND two of the following items. NB You should look at more than one country.

Chartier, Roger, 'The Literature of Roguery in the Bibliothèque bleue' in Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern FranceLink opens in a new window, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton, NJ, 1988), pp. 265-342.

Clark, Sandra, Women and Crime in the Street Literature of Early Modern EnglandLink opens in a new window (Houndmills, 2003). [Read one chapter].

Cockburn, J. S., 'Early Modern Assize Records as Historical Evidence', Journal of the Society of ArchivistsLink opens in a new window 5/4 (1975), 215-231.

Dean, Trevor, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval ItalyLink opens in a new window (Cambridge, 2007), Chapter One 'Trial Records' or Chapter Two 'Chronicles'.

French, Henry, 'Legal and Judicial Sources' in Laura Sangha and Jonathan Willis, eds, Understanding Early Modern Primary SourcesLink opens in a new window (Abingdon, 2016), pp. 35-57.

Gaskill, Malcolm, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern EnglandLink opens in a new window (Cambridge, 2000), Chapter Six.

Gladfelder, Hal, Criminality and Narrative in Eighteenth-century EnglandLink opens in a new window (Baltimore, 2001). [Read one chapter. Chapters Three, Four, and Five are particularly useful].

Gladfelder, Hal, 'Theatre of Blood: On the Criminal Trial as Tale of Terror', in David Lemmings and Allyson N. May, eds, Criminal Justice During the Long Eighteenth Century: Theatre, Representation and EmotionLink opens in a new window (Abingdon, 2018), pp. 153-76.

Härter, Karl, ‘Political Crime in Early Modern Europe: Assassination, Legal Responses and Popular Print MediaLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window’, European Journal of Criminology 11/2 (2014), 142–168.

Kollmann, Nancy Shields, Crime and Punishment in Early Modern RussiaLink opens in a new window (Cambridge, 2015), Introduction.

Lemmings, David, 'Negotiating Justice in the New Public Sphere: Crime, the Courts and the Press in Early Eighteenth-century Britain' in David Lemmings, ed., Crime, Courtrooms, and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700-1850Link opens in a new window (Farnham, 2012), pp. 119-146.

Martin, Randall, Women, Murder, and Equity in Early Modern EnglandLink opens in a new window (Abingdon, 2008). [Read one chapter].

Snell, Esther, 'Trials in Print: Narratives of Rape Trials in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey' in David Lemmings, ed., Crime, Courtrooms, and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700-1850Link opens in a new window (Farnham, 2012), pp. 23-42.

Tarlow, Sarah, and Emma Battell Lowman, Harnessing the Power of the Criminal CorpseLink opens in a new window (New York, 2018), Chapter Eight.

Wiltenburg, Joy, Crime and Culture in Early Modern GermanyLink opens in a new window (Charlottesville, VA, 2012) [The whole book discusses this topic but you might begin with the Introduction for an overview]

Further Reading

Dalton, Michael, The Countrey JusticeLink opens in a new window (London, 1618) [This manual was used by English justices of the peace. It offers advice on a wide range of issues including levying customs, highways, prisons, riots, soldiers, murder, felonies, rogues, vagabonds, and high treason]

Davis, Natalie Zemon, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-century FranceLink opens in a new window (Oxford, 1987)

Gray, Drew D., Crime, Policing and Punishment in England, 1660-1914Link opens in a new window (London, 2016), Chapter Two.

Harrington, Joel F., The Executioner's Journal: Meister Frantz Schmidt of the Imperial City of NurembergLink opens in a new window (Charlottesville, VA, 2016)

Kinney, Arthur F., ed. Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars: A New Gallery of Tudor and Early Stuart Rogue Literature Exposing the Lives, Times, and Cozening Tricks of the Elizabethan UnderworldLink opens in a new window (1973; rept. Amherst, 1990)

Langbein, John H., Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance : England, Germany, FranceLink opens in a new window (Cambridge, MA, 1974) [NB This includes the texts of key English, French, and Imperial statutes, and commentaries on these]

Electronic Resources

The Burney Collection of 17th and 18th Century NewspapersLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window 

The Court of Chivalry 1634-1640Link opens in a new window

Courts of Law Records Held in Other ArchivesLink opens in a new window [For UK records not in the National Archives]

Crime and Punishment Collections NetworkLink opens in a new window 

Criminal Trials in the Assize Courts 1559-1971Link opens in a new window

Early English Books OnlineLink opens in a new window

Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineLink opens in a new window

Eighteenth Century Journals: a portal to newspapers and periodicals, c1685-1815.Link opens in a new window

England's Quarter Sessions Records Online and in PrintLink opens in a new window

English Crime and Execution BroadsidesLink opens in a new window

London Lives 1690 to 1800: Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the MetropolisLink opens in a new window [A fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names.]

The Complete Newgate CalendarLink opens in a new window

The Old Bailey OnlineLink opens in a new window [A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. For BBC podcasts which use these records click hereLink opens in a new window]

English PetitionsLink opens in a new window, British History Online

The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth-Century EnglandLink opens in a new window