Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England

Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England
Author:
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 1977-06
Genre:
ISBN: 0804765901

Homicide was a frequent occurrence in medieval England. Indeed, violence was regarded as an acceptable, and often necessary, part of life. These are the conclusions reached by the author in his study of homicide patterns in London, Bristol, and five English counties from 1202 to 1276. Using quantitative methods, the author analyzes murder as a social relationship that can tell us much about medieval life and its social organization, much that would otherwise remain unknown. Given investigates murder rates, violent conflicts between family members, masters, servants, and neighbors, and the collaboration between these same groups in assaulting others. He also explores the socio-economic status of killers and victims, the treatment of killers in court, including what attitudes toward violence can be gleaned from judicial verdicts, the effects of urbanization of patterns of homicide, and social factors that impeded or encouraged recourse to violence.

Bishops, Clerks, and Diocesan Governance in Thirteenth-Century England

Bishops, Clerks, and Diocesan Governance in Thirteenth-Century England
Author: Michael Burger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2012-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139536745

This book investigates how bishops deployed reward and punishment to control their administrative subordinates in thirteenth-century England. Bishops had few effective avenues available to them for disciplining their clerks and rarely pursued them, preferring to secure their service and loyalty through rewards. The chief reward was the benefice, often granted for life. Episcopal administrators' security of tenure in these benefices, however, made them free agents, allowing them to transfer from diocese to diocese or even leave administration altogether; they did not constitute a standing episcopal civil service. This tenuous bureaucratic relationship made the personal relationship between bishop and clerk more important. Ultimately, many bishops communicated in terms of friendship with their administrators, who responded with expressions of devotion. Michael Burger's study brings together ecclesiastical, social, legal and cultural history, producing the first synoptic study of thirteenth-century English diocesan administration in decades. His research provides an ecclesiastical counterpoint to numerous studies of bastard feudalism in secular contexts.

The Ideal Society and Its Enemies

The Ideal Society and Its Enemies
Author: Miles Fairburn
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 177558187X

In this challenging and provocative study of the nature of settler society in 19th-century New Zealand, Fairburn focuses on the lives of the common people and presents a rigorous and original description of the place and time which is radically different from those of previous historians. An important book that will have a major impact on our understanding of New Zealand's past, it is also a significant contribution to the study of new societies.

The Language of Abuse

The Language of Abuse
Author: Sara Butler
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2007-03-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047418956

The Language of Abuse provides the first comprehensive examination of marital violence in later medieval England. Drawing from a wide variety of legal and literary sources, this book develops a nuanced perspective of the acceptability of marital violence at a time when social expectations of gender and marriage were in transition. As such, Butler’s work contributes to current debates concerning the role of the jury, levels of violence in late medieval England, the power relationship within marriage, and the position of women in medieval society.

Thirteenth Century England III

Thirteenth Century England III
Author: Peter R. Coss
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 234
Release: 1991
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780851155487

Thirteen papers from the 1989 Newcastle-upon-Tyne conference.

British Women's History

British Women's History
Author:
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 1996
Genre: Women
ISBN: 9780719046520

This is one of a series of bibliographical guides designed to meet the needs of undergraduates, postgraduates and their teachers in universities and colleges of further education. All volumes in the series share a number of common characteristics. They are selective, manageable in size, and include those books and articles which are considered most important and useful. All are editied by practising teachers of the subject in question and are based on their experience of the needs of students. The arrangement combines chronological with thematic divisions. Most of the items listed receive some descriptive comment.

Women in the Medieval English Countryside

Women in the Medieval English Countryside
Author: Judith M. Bennett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 1987-03-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198021135

Unlike most histories of European women, which have typically focused on the 19th and 20th century elite, this study reconstructs the public lives of peasant women and men during the six decades before the Black Death of 1348-49. Drawing on the extensive records of the forest manor of Brigstock, Judith Bennett challenges the myth of a "golden age" of equality for medieval men and women. Instead, she ably shows that women faced profound political, legal, economic, and social disadvantages in their dealings with men. These disadvantages stemmed more from women's household status as dependents of their husbands than from any notion of female inferiority; consequently, adolescents and widows participated much more actively than wives in the public life of Brigstock. Women in the Medieval English Countryside demonstrates not only how enduring the subordination of women has been throughout English history, but also how firmly that subordination has been rooted in the conjugal household.

Forensic Medicine and Death Investigation in Medieval England

Forensic Medicine and Death Investigation in Medieval England
Author: Sara M. Butler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2014-08-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317610253

England has traditionally been understood as a latecomer to the use of forensic medicine in death investigation, lagging nearly two-hundred years behind other European authorities. Using the coroner's inquest as a lens, this book hopes to offer a fresh perspective on the process of death investigation in medieval England. The central premise of this book is that medical practitioners did participate in death investigation – although not in every inquest, or even most, and not necessarily in those investigations where we today would deem their advice most pertinent. The medieval relationship with death and disease, in particular, shaped coroners' and their jurors' understanding of the inquest's medical needs and led them to conclusions that can only be understood in context of the medieval world's holistic approach to health and medicine. Moreover, while the English resisted Southern Europe's penchant for autopsies, at times their findings reveal a solid understanding of internal medicine. By studying cause of death in the coroners' reports, this study sheds new light on subjects such as abortion by assault, bubonic plague, cruentation, epilepsy, insanity, senescence, and unnatural death.

Women in the Medieval Common Law c.1200–1500

Women in the Medieval Common Law c.1200–1500
Author: Gwen Seabourne
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134775970

This book examines the view of women held by medieval common lawyers and legislators, and considers medieval women’s treatment by and participation in the processes of the common law. Surveying a wide range of points of contact between women and the common law, from their appearance (or not) in statutes, through their participation (or not) as witnesses, to their treatment as complainants or defendants, it argues for closer consideration of women within the standard narratives of classical legal history, and for re-examination of some previous conclusions on the relationship between women and the common law. It will appeal to scholars and students of medieval history, as well as those interested in legal history, gender studies and the history of women.