Description
Book SynopsisFemale protagonists are commonly overlooked in the history of crime; especially in early modern Italy, where women’s scope of action is often portrayed as heavily restricted. This book redresses the notion of Italian women’s passivity, arguing that women’s crimes were far too common to be viewed as an anomaly. Based on over two thousand criminal complaints and investigation dossiers, Sanne Muurling charts the multifaceted impact of gender on patterns of recorded crime in early modern Bologna. While various socioeconomic and legal mechanisms withdrew women from the criminal justice process, the casebooks also reveal that women – as criminal offenders and savvy litigants – had an active hand in keeping the wheels of the court spinning.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures and Tables 1 Introduction 1 Historical Involvement of Women in Crime in Early Modern Europe 2 Crime and Gender in an Early Modern Italian City 3 Criminal Court Records as Sources for Social History 4 Composition of This Book 2 Women’s Roles, Institutions, and Social Control 1 Political and Demographic Developments 2 Household Structures, Property Rights and Legal Capacity 3 Women within the Urban Economy 4 Interlocking Systems of Assistance and Control 5 Conclusion: Agency within a Culture of Constraint 3 The Torroneand the Prosecution of Crimes 1 The Tribunale del Torrone within Bologna’s Legal Landscape 2 The Administration of Criminal Justice 3 Criminal Procedures 4 Italian Women’s Involvement in Recorded Crime 5 The Character of Indicted Crime in Bologna 6 Gender Dynamics in the Sentencing of Crimes 7 Conclusion: Distinguishing Features of Women’s Prosecution 4 Denunciations and the Uses of Justice 1 Women and the Uses of Justice 2 Denunciations before the Torrone 3 The Torrone as a Forum for Conflict Resolution 4 The Urban Context of Women’s Litigation 5 The Users of Justice 6 Objectives of Litigation 7 Conclusion: Criminal Litigation, Gender and Agency 5 Violence and the Politics of Everyday Life 1 The Culture of Violence between Prosecution and Reconciliation 2 Lethal Violence in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 3 Insults and the Politics of Daily Life 4 The Importance of Petty Physical Violence 5 Severity and Weapons 6 Violence and Social Relations 7 The Gendered Geography of Violence 8 Framing Men’s and Women’s Violence 9 Conclusion: Everyday Violence and the Uses of Justice 6 Theft and Its Prosecution 1 Legal Attitudes towards Theft 2 Prosecution and Sentencing 3 The Social Profile of Thieves and Economies of Makeshift 4 Stolen Goods 5 The Geographies of Theft 6 The Distribution of Stolen Goods 7 Conclusion: Judicial Paternalism and Women’s Roles in Thieving 7 Conclusion 1 The Case of Bologna and Patterns of Female Crime 2 The Impact of Institutionalisation, Judicial Paternalism and Peacemaking Practices 3 Crime and Italian Women’s Agency 4 Avenues for Future Research Appendix: Information on Samples Bibliography Index
