Penal practice and culture, 1500-1900 : punishing the English / edited by Simon Devereaux and Paul Griffiths.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Devereaux, Simon, 1966-

Griffiths, Paul, 1960-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Corrections--England--History.

Corrections.

Punishment--England--History.

Punishment.

Violence--England--History.

Violence.

Social control--England--History.

Social control.

History.

England.

Physical Description:

x, 319 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Summary:

The gallows is one of the most gruesome images from the past. There is no other scene like an execution, not even 'bloody' whippings in market-squares or cutting off an ear on pillories. The English were punished in many ways in the five centuries after 1500, and this pathbreaking book covers the full range of punishment -- from death to ducking stools, and from bridewells to Victorian penitentiaries. The long search for an alternative to hanging is at the core of this book -- various chapters explore arguments for and against penal reform, giving new perspectives on the rise of imprisonment and transportation and explaining why whipping posts, ducking stools and stocks are no longer with us. It is also about emotions, cruelty, violence and shame. We meet people applying for the hangman's job in 1883, 'whores' being carted through London's streets in the 1500s, and crowds watching whippings two centuries later. All of them have something important to tell us about past cultures, politics and societies.

Contents:

Introduction: Punishing the English / Paul Griffiths 1

1 Shame and Pain: Themes and Variations in Tudor Punishments / Martin Ingram 36

2 Dead Men Talking: Truth, Texts and the Scaffold in Early Modern England / Katherine Royer 63

3 Bodies and Souls in Norwich: Punishing Petty Crime, 1540-1700 / Paul Griffiths 85

4 Punishing Pardon: Some Thoughts on the Origins of Penal Transportation / Cynthia Herrup 121

5 Public Punishment and the Manx Ecclesiastical Courts during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries / J.R. Dickinson, J.A. Sharpe 138

6 Sanctifying the Robe: Punitive Violence and the English Press, 1650-1700 / Philippe Rosenberg 157

7 The Grotian Moment: Natural Penal Rights and Republicanism / Mark Rigstad 183

8 The Problem of Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England / Randall McGowen 210

9 Streets of Shame? The Crowd and Public Punishments in London, 1700-1820 / R.S. Shoemaker 232

10 Peel, Pardon and Punishment: The Recorder's Report Revisited / Simon Devereaux 258

11 'I Could Hang Anything You can Bring Before Me': England's Willing Executioners in 1883 / Greg T. Smith 285.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0333997409

OCLC:

52478379

Online:

Publisher description