Dissecting Violence. Autopsy, Medical Expertise and Criminal Justice in Early Modern Flanders

Medical Expertise ◽

Medical Reports ◽

Abstract Drawing on a sample of 875 forensic medical reports produced within the early modern County of Flanders, this contribution aims to analyse and explain some developments in the medico-legal discourse of violent crime. While sixteenth-century post-mortem reports essentially deal with assessing the lethality of wounds, later centuries witnessed a more elaborate approach to violent death, in which attempts were made to establish the relationship between a wound and fatality by reconstructing its pathology. In this way, medical expertise contributed to a more nuanced qualification of violent crime, thoroughly influencing judicial decision-making by bringing new attenuating circumstances into play, while adhering to a cautious empiricist epistemology. This cautiousness also constituted one of the weaknesses of the reports, making their content vulnerable to criticism by judicial officials whose primary concern was to resolve homicide cases.

Biblical Exegesis and Early Modern Legal History in Calvin’s Mosaic Harmony

Calvin, the Bible, and History ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190093273.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 165-195

Author(s):

Barbara Pitkin

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Legal History ◽

Biblical Interpretation ◽

Biblical Exegesis ◽

Historical Method ◽

The Bible ◽

Recent Scholarship ◽

The chapter examines John Calvin’s commentary on Exodus through Deuteronomy (1563) through the lens of sixteenth-century historical jurisprudence, exemplified in the works of Calvin’s contemporaries François de Connan and François Baudouin. Recent scholarship has demonstrated how Calvin’s historicizing exegesis is in continuity with broader contemporary trends in premodern Christian biblical interpretation; this chapter explores another essential context for Calvin’s approach to the Bible. The intermingling of narrative and legal material in these four biblical books inspired Calvin to break with his customary practice of lectio continua and apply his historical hermeneutic more broadly and creatively to explain the Mosaic histories and legislation. Calvin’s unusual and unprecedented arrangement of the material in this commentary and his attention to the relationship between law and history reveal his engagement with his generation’s quest for historical method.

To Sing Upon the Book: Oral and Written Counterpoint in Early Modern Europe

Textual Cultures ◽

10.14434/textual.v13i1.30071 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 75-105

Author(s):

Ronald Broude

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Fifteenth Century ◽

New Music ◽

Early Modern Europe ◽

Music Printing ◽

Musical Tradition ◽

Alternative Means ◽

Textual Form ◽

During the fifteenth century, many musici thought of counterpoint as an improvisational practice in which certain procedures were employed to produce a musical texture in which interest lay in the interplay of two or more melodic lines. The improvisational practice was called singing upon the book (cantare super librum): it required one singer to realize a pre-existing melody (called a cantus firmus) inscribed in a text while one or more other singers (called concentors), reading from that same text, devised, ex tempore, a countermelody or melodies that obeyed the rules of counterpoint with respect to the cantus firmus. Similar procedures, applied in writing, produced res facta, contrapuntal texture in textual form. Counterpoint and res facta were alternative means of providing music for occasions both sacred and secular. During the sixteenth century, several factors combined to alter the relationship between improvised and written counterpoint, and by the end of the century the importance of the former was greatly diminished. The growth of music printing provided an abundance of music for a growing community of amateurs who could read music but were not interested singing upon the book. The composers responsible for this new music embraced emerging ideas that stressed the advantages of written music, which enjoyed permanence that improvised counterpoint lacked, which was usually more observant of the rules than improvised counterpoint could be, and which enhanced the reputations of the composers who created it. As a result of these developments, emphasis shifted from improvised to written counterpoint, from the procedures that produced a contrapuntal texture to the texture itself, and singing upon the book came to be seen by many not as an end in itself but as a way to sharpen composers’ skills. Marginalized by print, improvised counterpoint survived in a much reduced community, largely in Catholic France and Iberia, and eventually, for want of a musical community large enough to sustain it, ceased to be a living musical tradition.

“Communis Hostis Omnium”: The Smerwick Massacre (1580) and the Law of Nations

Journal of British Studies ◽

10.1017/jbr.2019.6 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 58 (3) ◽

pp. 473-493 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

D. Alan Orr

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Present State ◽

Elizabeth I ◽

Queen Elizabeth I ◽

Law Of Nations ◽

Common Enemy ◽

The Law ◽

AbstractThis article examines the brutal massacre of up to six hundred Spanish and Italian papal troops on the order of the English Lord Deputy Arthur Grey, 14th Baron de Wilton (1536–1593), at Dún An Óir (Forto del Oro), Smerwick, County Kerry, on 10 November 1580. The article investigates the relationship between the religious and juridical rationales for the massacre, shedding new light on the broader relationship between the early modern law of nations, Protestantism, and what Brendan Bradshaw has characterized as “catastrophic violence” in the Elizabethan military conquest of Ireland. While Vincent Carey has emphasized the virulently anti-Catholic character of Grey's rationales for the massacre, my argument instead emphasizes the role of the received laws of nations and of war in justifying Grey's actions both to Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) and to the English public, from the period immediately following the massacre until the writing of Edmund Spenser's pro-Grey apologetic, A View of the Present State of Ireland (ca. 1596). On this view, the papal troops at Smerwick were considered brigands, pirates, or, in Marcus Tullius Cicero's words, “communis hostis omnium”—a common enemy to all—and enjoyed no standing as lawful enemies under the law of nations. In the sixteenth century, the established law of nations was hardly a seamless web but manifested significant cleavages and fissures allowing for the construction of localized spheres of legal exception in which the ordinary rules of warfare did not apply, thus providing a convenient juridical rationale for atrocity.

Mechanisms Underlying Familial Influence on Elite Political Behavior: Evidence from the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals

Review of Law & Economics ◽

10.1515/rle-2020-0042 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Lempert ◽

Alyse Camacho

Keyword(s):

Political Behavior ◽

Title Ix ◽

Courts Of Appeals ◽

Family Influences ◽

Judicial Decision ◽

Sibling Gender ◽

The Relationship ◽

Circuit Courts ◽

Rule Out

Abstract This article contributes to the literature addressing family influences on elite political behavior. By empirically assessing the influence of sibling gender on judicial decision-making, we are able to present evidence on the mechanism by which child, sibling and other relatives’ gender may influence elite political behavior. We build on a published dataset by mining various archival sources to compile data on the gender of judges’ siblings. We find no evidence that male judges’ votes on so-called “women’s issues” (employment discrimination based on gender or pregnancy, reproductive rights/abortion, and Title IX) are affected by whether they have a sister, and we are able to rule out large effects of a sibling’s gender on male and female judges’ votes. Our results imply that the relationship between family member gender and elite political behavior is driven by the desire to avoid costs of discrimination, rather than learning from family members.

On the Social Construction of Legal Grievances: Evidence From Colombia and South Africa

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414019897685 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 53 (8) ◽

pp. 1326-1356

Author(s):

Whitney K. Taylor

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Social Construction ◽

Access To Health Care ◽

Legal Mobilization ◽

Social Rights ◽

Judicial Decision ◽

Access To Health ◽

The Social ◽

Leveraging comparisons within and across cases, this article investigates legal mobilization for social rights in Colombia and South Africa. This kind of rights contestation represents a new phenomenon, in which both ordinary citizens and judicial actors have come to view problems related to access to health care, housing, education, and social security through the lens of the law. Research on legal mobilization has tended toward one-sided examinations of this complex phenomenon, focusing primarily on either legal claims-making or judicial decision-making, and neglecting to fully theorize the relationship between the two. Drawing on an analysis of rights claims and 178 interviews, this article aims to correct these imbalances. In doing so, it offers a generalizable model that accounts for the social construction of legal grievances and the development of judicial receptivity to particular kinds of claims, and explains both the emergence and continuation of legal mobilization for social rights.

Staging Vice and Acting Evil: Theatre and Anti-Theatre in Early Modern England

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400001297 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 48 ◽

pp. 156-169

Author(s):

George Oppitz-Trotman

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Moral Evil ◽

Early Modern England ◽

Religious Change ◽

Religious Writings ◽

Moral Ambivalence ◽

This article revisits the relationship between dramatic production and religious change in the sixteenth century, specifically by examining the allegorical Vice figure - a dramatic embodiment of evil forces - that came to particular prominence during this period. It suggests that the professional actor became increasingly associated with this figure of moral evil. I propose also that understanding the moral ambivalence of the actor’s presence can inform our understanding of many plays in which no obviously coherent Vice figure is present, but in which possibilities of such an allegory are important. It would be impractical to present this argument across the range of dramatic examples it deserves, particularly since substantial contextual argument will be necessary if the article’s conclusions are to have any weight. It is partly for this reason that an examination of Shakespeare’s Hamlet concludes the paper, a play needing no introduction. It will be suggested that the play’s issue of conscience was mediated in important ways by the actor’s potentially Vice-like presence, defined as such by Tudor legislation as well as by a variety of anti-theatrical religious writings.

Between Nature and Culture : The Integrated Ecology of Renaissance Climate Theories

Early Modern Écologies ◽

10.5117/9789462985971_ch06 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sara Miglietti

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Modern World ◽

Human Culture ◽

Nature And Culture ◽

‘Climate theories’ are often explained away in scholarship as pseudosciences irrelevant to the modern world, or as morally problematic forms of geographic determinism. This chapter instead argues that such theories still offer a valuable lens not only for understanding how early modern people conceptualized the relationship between human culture and nonhuman nature, but also for resituating ourselves with respect to this very same issue. Are we humans above and outside nature, or are we an integral part of it, caught in its dynamics and affected by its internal changes—including those resulting from our own agency? Three sixteenth-century authors (Le Roy, Bodin, La Framboisière) are here brought into dialogue with contemporary thinkers (Descola, Latour) to reappraise the ‘integrated ecology’ of nature and culture proposed by early modern climate theorists.

The Impossible Striptease: Nudity in Jean Calvin and Michel de Montaigne

Renaissance and Reformation ◽

10.33137/rr.v37i1.21282 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 65-85

Author(s):

Nora Martin Peterson

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

The Body ◽

Michel De Montaigne ◽

This essay examines the writings of Jean Calvin and Michel de Montaigne, two figures not commonly considered together. The article seeks to highlight a certain fascination with nudity, not only in these texts, but in sixteenth-century culture as a whole. Though it is a bodily phenomenon, I argue, representations of nudity are more than skin-deep; they go beyond the capacity of what the body is able to express. Writings about nudity, whether religious or secular, reflect a widespread anxiety about the relationship between truth and representation in early modern discourse. The preoccupation with surfaces in the texts of both writers highlights the continued epistemological crisis in sixteenth- century religion, culture, and writing. Cet essai examine les œuvres de Jean Calvin et de Michel de Montaigne, deux auteurs rarement étudiés dans leur rapport. Cet article cherche à souligner une certaine fascination pour la nudité, non seulement dans ces textes mais dans l’ensemble de la culture du seizième siècle. Bien que la nudité soit observable au niveau corporel, je soutiens que les représentations de la nudité sont bien plus profondes : elles vont au-delà de ce que le corps est capable d’exprimer. Les écrits sur la nudité reflètent une angoisse collective quant à la relation entre vérité et représentation dans le discours des débuts des temps modernes. Le souci lié aux surfaces, présent dans les textes de ces deux auteurs, souligne une crise épistémologique prolongée dans la religion, la culture et la littérature du seizième siècle.

GENDER IN THE HISTORY OF EARLY MODERN POLITICAL THOUGHT

The Historical Journal ◽

10.1017/s0018246x17000061 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 60 (4) ◽

pp. 843-863 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

ANNA BECKER

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Political Thought ◽

The Political ◽

History Of Political Thought ◽

The Public ◽

Modern Politics ◽

History Of ◽

Relationship Of ◽

AbstractIn the history of early modern political thought, gender is not well established as a subject. It seems that early modern politics and its philosophical underpinnings are characterized by an exclusion of women from the political sphere. This article shows that it is indeed possible to write a gendered history of early modern political thought that transcends questions of the structural exclusion of women from political participation. Through a nuanced reading of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century commentaries on Aristotle's practical philosophy, it deconstructs notions on the public/political and private/apolitical divide and reconstructs that early modern thinkers saw the relationship of husband and wife as deeply political. The article argues that it is both necessary and possible to write gender in and into the history of political thought in a historically sound and firmly contextual way that avoids anachronisms, and it shows – as Joan Scott has suggested – that gender is indeed a ‘useful category’ in the history of political thought.

Informative Precedent and Intrajudicial Communication

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055402000436 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 96 (4) ◽

pp. 755-766 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita ◽

Matthew Stephenson

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Voting Behavior ◽

Judicial Decision ◽

Legal Rules ◽

Legal Evolution ◽

Informational Model ◽

Trial Judges ◽

We develop an informational model of judicial decision-making in which deference to precedent is useful to policy-oriented appellate judges because it improves the accuracy with which they can communicate legal rules to trial judges. Our simple model yields new implications and hypotheses regarding conditions under which judges will maintain or break with precedent, the constraining effect that precedent has on judicial decision-making, the voting behavior of Supreme Court Justices, the relationship between a precedent's age and its authority, the effect of legal complexity on the level of deference to precedent, the relative stability of rules and standards, and long-term patterns of legal evolution. Perhaps most importantly, we demonstrate that “legalist” features of judicial decision-making are consistent with an assumption of policy-oriented judges.