Medieval and Early Modern Murder: Legal, Literary and Historical Contexts

doi:10.1017/9781787442764

Murder - the perpetrators, victims, methods and motives - has been the subject of law, literature, chronicles and religion, often crossing genres and disciplines and employing multiple modes of expression and interpretation. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, definitions of murder, manslaughter and justified or unjustified homicide depend largely on the legal terminology and the laws of the society. Much like modern nations, medieval societies treated murder and murderers differently based on their social standing, the social standing of the victim, their gender, their mental capacity for understanding their crime, and intent, motive and means. The three parts of this volume explore different aspects of this crime in the Middle Ages. The first provides the legal template for reading cases of murder in a variety of sources. The second examines the public hermeneutics of murder, especially the ways in which medieval societies interpreted and contextualised their textual traditions: Icelandic sagas, Old French fabliaux, Arthuriana and accounts of assassination. Finally, the third part focuses on the effects of murder within the community: murder as a social ill, especially in killing kin. Larissa Tracy is Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University. Contributors: Dianne Berg, G. Koolemans Beynen, Dwayne C. Coleman, Jeffrey Doolittle, Carmel Ferragud, Jay Paul Gates, Thomas Gobbitt, Emily J. Hutchison, Jolanta N. Komornicka, Anne Latowsky, Matthew Lubin, Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, Ben Parsons, Ilse Schweitzer VanDonkelaar, Hannah Skoda, Bridgette Slavin, Larissa Tracy, Patricia Turning, Lucas Wood

- Aa Reduce text
- Aa Enlarge text

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

Page 1 of 2

First
« Prev
1
2
Next »
Last

Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-iv
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Contents
pp v-vi
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

List of Illustrations and Tables
pp vii-vii
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Acknowledgements
pp viii-viii
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Contributors
pp ix-xiii
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

List of Abbreviations
pp xiv-xiv
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Introduction: Murder Most Foul
pp 1-16
- By Larissa Tracy, Longwood University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

I - Murder on Trial: Justice, Law and Society
pp 17-18
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

1 - Secret Killing and Murder by Magic in the Law of Adomnán
pp 19-46
- By Bridgette Slavin, Medaille College in Buffalo
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

2 - Discursive Murders: The St Brice's Day Massacre, Beowulf and Morðor
pp 47-76
- By Jay Paul Gates, City University of New York
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

3 - Mourning Murderers in Medieval Jewish Law
pp 77-95
- By Pinchas Roth, Bar Ilan University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

4 - Treacherous Murder: Language and Meaning in French Murder Trials
pp 96-114
- By Jolanta N. Komornicka, St Jerome’s University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

5 - ‘Mordre wol out’: Murder and Justice in Chaucer
pp 115-136
- By Larissa Tracy, Longwood University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

II - The Public Hermeneutics of Murder: Interpretation and Context
pp 137-138
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

6 - Bringing Murder to Light: Death, Publishing and Performance in Icelandic Sagas
pp 139-158
- By Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar, Grand Valley State University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

7 - ‘I Think This Bacon is Wearing Shoes’: Comedy and Murder in the Old French Fabliaux
pp 159-178
- By Anne Latowsky, University of South Florida
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

8 - ‘Chevaliers ocirre’: Manslaughter, Morality and Meaning in the Queste del Saint Graal
pp 179-205
- By Lucas Wood, Texas Tech University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

9 - Murder, Manslaughter and Reputation: Killing in Malory's Le Morte Darthur
pp 206-226
- By Dwayne C. Coleman, University of Central Arkansas
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

10 - Poisoning as a Means of State Assassination in Early Modern Venice
pp 227-253
- By Matthew Lubin, Duke University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

11 - Defamation, a Murder More Foul?: The ‘Second Murder’ of Louis, Duke of Orleans (d. 1407) Reconsidered
pp 254-280
- By Emily J. Hutchison, Mount Royal University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

12 - ‘A general murther, an universal slaughter’: Strategies of Anti-Jesuit Defamation in Reporting Assassination in the Early Modern Period
pp 281-308
- By Andrew Mckenzie- McHarg, University of Cambridge
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

III - Murder in the Community: Gender, Youth And Family
pp 309-310
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

13 - Negotiating Murder in the Historiae of Gregory of Tours
pp 311-332
- By Jeffrey Doolittle, Fordham University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

14 - Poisoning, Killing and Murder in the Edictus Rothari
pp 333-349
- By Thomas Gobbitt, Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of the Sciences
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

15 - Murder, Foul and Fair, in Shota Rustaveli's The Man in the Panther Skin
pp 350-370
- By G. Koolemans Beynen, University of South Africa
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

16 - A Multiple Poisoning in the City of Valencia: Sanxo Calbó's Crime (1442)
pp 371-394
- By Carmel Ferragud, Universitat de València
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

17 - A Case of Mariticide in Late Medieval France
pp 395-416
- By Patricia Turning, Albright College
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

18 - Monstrous Un-Making: Maternal Infanticide and Female Agency in Early Modern England
pp 417-433
- By Dianne Berg, Tufts University
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

19 - Imps of Hell: Young People, Murder and the Early English Press
pp 434-455
- By Ben Parsons, University of Leicester
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Conclusion
pp 456-467
- By Hannah Skoda, St John’s College, Oxford
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation

Page 1 of 2

First
« Prev
1
2
Next »
Last

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Total number of HTML views: 0

Total number of PDF views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

Total views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Medieval and Early Modern Murder

Legal, Literary and Historical Contexts

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information