Crime, Gender and Social Order in Early Modern England

All titles

Series:

Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History

Author:

Garthine Walker, Cardiff University

Published:

November 2008

Availability:

Available

Format:

Paperback

ISBN:

9780521091176

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Paperback

An extended study of gender and crime in early modern England. It considers the ways in which criminal behaviour and perceptions of criminality were informed by ideas about gender and order, and explores their practical consequences for the men and women who were brought before the criminal courts. Dr Walker's innovative approach demonstrates that, contrary to received opinion, the law was often structured so as to make the treatment of women and men before the courts incommensurable. For the first time, early modern criminality is explored in terms of masculinity as well as femininity. Illuminating the interactions between gender and other categories such as class and civil war have implications not merely for the historiography of crime but for the social history of early modern England as a whole. This study therefore goes beyond conventional studies, and challenges hitherto accepted views of social interaction in the period.

The first book to consider how ideas about masculinity and femininity impacted on criminality and legal outcomes
Overturns conventional historiographical ideas about the prosecution of women, arguing that they were victims of biased sentencing
Weaves together social and legal histories to illuminate the complexities of everyday life in early modern England

Reviews & endorsements

"...Walker has produced an impressive and important piece of scholarship that will be required reading for historians of disorder, crime, and the courts in early modern English."
- The Historian

"In her excellent Crime, Gender and Social Order in Early Modern England, Garthine Walker argues that historians have been so little surprised by men's predominance in criminal matters that we have been lulled into accepting a whole set of unwarranted assumptions about men, women, gender roles, crime, and early-modern society in general. This ambitious book challenges these assumptions, and, as does all the best history, offers fresh and compelling answers to questions we thought we had already answered or had not thought to ask. [A] stimulating book [with] characteristic rigour and clarity...Garthine Walker's methods and conclusions, delivered in clear and engaging prose, offer much to admire, discuss, contest, and build on. This is a book that deserves to be widely read."
- Canadian Journal of History, Gordon DesBrisay, University of Saskatchewan

"This is the most subtle and sophisticated analysis of the relationship between gender, crime, and justice in early modern England yet published."
- H-Albion

"By bringing the tools of gender studies, discourse analysis, and social history to bear on her subject, Walker has ultimately produced a work of great richness, illuminating early modern Enlish society in all its raucous, disorderly, contentious, opinionated, and colorful ways."
- Mary Beth Emmerichs, University of Wisconsin, Sheboygan

"...this book is an excellent overview of the social and judicial history of localities in early modern England... Walker's book is a strong addition to the historiography of women's history, legal history, and social history within the early modern world."
- Sixteenth Century Journal, Kristen Post Walton, Salisbury University

"This is a rich, layered book, packed with insights and compelling illustration, and securely founded on the authority of the expert." - Journal of Modern History, Malcolm Gaskill, Churchill College, Cambridge University

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