Violence in Medieval Europe
M. Turple
Hist 307.3
2020-02-10
Through the ending of the dark ages to the beginning of Medieval and early modern
Europe, the institutional use of violence had become strewn as violent and barbaric, backwards
in comparison to how we view the modern era. Stories of dismemberment, burning alive, and
public executions fill the era with a negative connotation for law management. The criminal
system of the Medieval era was dealt with in differing courts, the manorial court dealt with all
petty crimes such as theft and left the more severe crimes to the King’s court1. The manorial
court gathered several times a year and had all villagers attend lest they pay a fine. Dividing the
men into groups of ten, a tithing, where they held each other accountable to bring those who’d
committed crimes to court. The Lord’s steward was in charge of the court and processed the
crimes to give adequate sentences based on the jury’s evidence and findings. In many ways it
developed the law system we have currently, mimicking the role of the Steward is a judge, a jury
is put in place, and a courtroom meeting is in place to determine the innocence and punishments
of crimes. The Kings court was a different story, however, as it dealt with severe ordeals that are
labelled as high crimes, or crimes against the king. These include assault, murder, and treason
against the crown2. All of which are deemed an insult and crime against the kingdom.
Punishments for the petty crimes of the manorial court were fines and humiliation to prevent a
repeat of wrongdoings.
1
Xavier Rousseaux, Crime, Justice and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Times: Thirty Years of Crime and
Criminal Justice History, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies [Online], Vol. 1, n°1 | 1997, Online
since 03 April 2009, connection on 30 April 2019, http:// journals.openedition.org/chs/1034, 97
2
Rousseaux, Crime, Justice and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Times: Thirty Years of Crime and Criminal
Justice History, 99
High crimes of more severity were met with banishment, dismemberment, hanging,
mutilation through trials, and death by burning at the stake. The Kings court, in response to high
crimes, was savage and brutal in handing out punishments, with violence being key in warding
off and deterring any of the royal subjects from dabbling in crimes against the king. These public
executions and horridly violent criminal punishments served a purpose beneficial to the realm
where, as spoken by historian Johan Huizinga, the punishments were “Spectacular displays with
a moral. For horrible crimes the law invented horrible punishments.”3. The belief held of
criminal activity being a direct insult to the kingdom and the monarch within medieval Europe
aided in the development of judicial cruelty and violence. To maintain social order, creatively
malicious and heinous punishments were enacted to deter violence or criminal activity. The use
of violence in the punishments of the medieval justice system was used scarcely but intensely,
and came as a deterrent for the subjects of Europe to commit criminal behaviour as the actions of
petty crimes would be met with humiliation, but the brutality and horror of the utmost violent
punishments barred possible criminals from debating high crimes or crimes against the king.
3
Sean Mcglynn, Violence and the Law in Medieval England: How Dangerous Was Life in the Middle Ages?, History
Today, Vol. 58, No. 4, (April 2008) https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-177954050/violence-and-the-law-inmedieval-england-how-dangerous
Annotated Bibliography
Sean Mcglynn, Violence and the Law in Medieval England: How Dangerous Was Life in the Middle Ages?,
History Today, Vol. 58, No. 4, (April 2008) https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1177954050/violence-and-the-law-in-medieval-england-how-dangerous
Mcglynn’s article provides an argument as to why the medieval era was as violent as it was, and why the
heinous and colourful methods used to incapacitate and murder criminals wasn’t just a death penalty.
The intense pain and terror of the punishments served as a deterrent to such behaviour as crimes
against the king and high crimes. If not to prevent a repeat offender, they scare a would be ne’er-dowell out of their leather boots or calopedes. It provides a quote I used in my abstract by the historian
Huizinga which sums up the medieval violence in the criminal justice system very well, a “spectacular
display with a moral” in the teachings towards divergence from crime.
Xavier Rousseaux, Crime, Justice and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Times: Thirty Years of Crime
and Criminal Justice History, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies [Online], Vol. 1, n°1 |
1997, Online since 03 April 2009, connection on 30 April 2019, http://
journals.openedition.org/chs/1034, 97
This source provides a lot of formal information as to the statistical information around the criminal
activity of medieval peasants. Rousseaux enlightens as to the criminal court system and how it’s worked
statistically with references to the modern era. The article dissects the implications of the criminal world
of medieval Europe, and how most crimes reflect the state of living of the subjects, with an abundance
of petty crimes being caused and dealt with in the manorial courts. Rousseaux’s article explains the
nature of violence in the justice system as a regulation for physical violence and a method to fight it
through violence itself, and fear of violence. While being informative and full of statistical and deduced
findings, the article maintains a legitimate source with extensive sourcing and referencing.
- This needs some major narrowing of the topic. Perhaps the best version is something along the
lines of ‘what kind of violence characterizes the medieval period?’
- Even that is fairly broad. However, a paper on the historical debate over violence in England
could be a viable topic. Start with these back-and-forth debates and see what you can come up
with:
Sharpe, J. A. “Domestic Homicide in Early Modern England.” The Historical Journal, vol. 24,
no. 1, 1981, pp. 29–48.
Stone, Lawrence. “Interpersonal Violence in English Society 1300-1980.” P&P, no. 101, 1983,
pp. 22–33.
Sharpe, J. A. “The History of Violence in England: Some Observations.” P&P, no. 108, 1985,
pp. 206–15. A.63.
Stone, Lawrence. “The History of Violence in England: Some Observations: A Rejoinder.”
P&P, no. 108, 1985, pp. 216–24.
Cockburn, J. S. “Patterns of Violence in English Society: Homicide in Kent 1560-1985.” P&P,
no. 130, 1991, pp. 70–106.
Ok, one place to start is to re-read some of the early articles we looked at in class, particularly
the DeHaan paper and the chapter from Maddern. Both of them deal with the complex
problem of what violence is and why it's hard to study. Within medieval history violence is
usually seen as a problem that needed solving which influenced how it was studied by later
historians. This overlooks the whole question about what all that violence meant and why it
existed. So, the idea is to look at some aspect of violence in the past with that set of questions
in mind.
Your abstract had a sort of historiographic approach, which has potential but likely requires
more time and sources than you really have access to. Perhaps a shortcut would be to take
apart an existing argument over this topic and boil it down to a few essential conclusions.
Something like the long-running back and forth between Lawrence Stone and J.A. Sharpe
in Past & Present would work. All of those papers are available through the library journal
databases. Start there and see if you can pull something from that which fits into the general
theme you had explored. Here are the papers to look up:
Sharpe, J. A. “Domestic Homicide in Early Modern England.” The Historical Journal 24, no. 1
(1981): 29–48.
Sharpe, J. A. “The History of Crime in Late Medieval and Early Modern England: A Review of the
Field.” Social History 7, no. 2 (1982): 187–203.
Stone, Lawrence. “Interpersonal Violence in English Society 1300-1980.” P&P, no. 101 (1983):
22–33.
Sharpe, J. A. “The History of Violence in England: Some Observations.” P&P, no. 108 (1985):
206–15.
Stone, Lawrence. “The History of Violence in England: Some Observations: A Rejoinder.” P&P,
no. 108 (1985): 216–24.
Reference
What kind of violence characterizes the medieval period?
Read conclusions of the articles
The use of violence in medieval Europe is inherited amongst discrepancies, and used vastly on a punitive
scale to prevent and defend from conflicts