Title
Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500 / Karl Shoemaker.
ISBN
9780823292523
Published
New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2022]
Copyright
©2011
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (292 p.)
Item Number
10.1515/9780823292523 doi
Summary
Sanctuary and Crime rethinks the history of sanctuary protections in the Western legal tradition. Until the sixteenth century, every major medieval legal tradition afforded protections to fugitive criminals who took sanctuary in churches. Sanctuary-seeking criminals might have been required to perform penance or go into exile, but they were guaranteed, at least in principle, immunity from corporal and capital punishment. In the sixteenth century, sanctuary protections were abolished throughout Europe, uprooting an ancient tradition and raising a new set of juridical arguments about law, crime and the power to punish. Sanctuary law has not received very much scholarly attention. According to the prevailing explanation among earlier generations of legal historians, sanctuary was an impediment to effective criminal law and social control, but was made necessary by rampant violence and weak political order in the medieval world. Contrary to the conclusions of the relatively scant literature on the topic, Sanctuary and Crime argues that the practice of sanctuary was not simply an instrumental device intended as a response to weak and splintered medieval political authority. Nor can sanctuary laws be explained as simple ameliorative responses to harsh medieval punishments and the specter of uncontrolled blood-feuds. This book seeks to integrate the history of sanctuary law with the history of criminal law in medieval Europe. It does so by first situating sanctuary law within the early Christian traditions of intercession and penance as well as late-imperial Roman law. The book then traces the transmission of Romano-Christian sanctuary legislation into the feuding traditions of early medieval Europe, showing how sanctuary law was an important emblem of Christian kingship and was integrated into a broad range of social, legal, ecclesiastical and political practices. By the late twelfth-century, sanctuary had been domesticated within the procedures of royal law in England. Unmoored from its taproots in penitential and intercessory practices, sanctuary became a central feature of the emergent law of felony in the early English common law. While sanctuary was widely recognized throughout late medieval Europe, medieval English records provide rich accounts of sanctuary in everyday medieval life and the book reflects the prominence of the English sources. The book concludes by examining the legal arguments in both English and Roman-canonical legal traditions that led to the restriction and abolition of sanctuary privileges in the sixteenth-century and which ushered in a new age of criminal law grounded in deterrence and a state-centered view of punishment and social control.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 03. Jan 2023)
Series
Just Ideas
Available in Other Form
print 9780823232680
Frontmatter
Contents
List of Abbreviations
Prologue
Introduction
PART I. The Foundations of Sanctuary Law in Late Antiquity
1 Authority, Intercession, and Penance
2 Roman Aristocratic Traditions, Imperial Penal Law, and Sanctuary
PART II. The Emergence of Sanctuary Law in the Early Middle Ages
3 Reassessing Early Medieval Sanctuary Legislation
4 The Transmission and Reception of Sanctuary Legislation in the Early Middle Ages
5 Sanctuary, Blood Feud, and the Strength of Anglo-Saxon Government
PART III. Sanctuary in Late Medieval England and the Canon Law
6 Sanctuary in the Century After the Norman Conquest
7 Sanctuary and Angevin Law Reforms
8 The Role of Canon Law in the Destruction of Sanctuary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
