Syllabus
for History 331, last taught Fall 2000
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This class will involve a semester long discussion of power. In early
modern Europe who had power and who did not? Using the topics of crime
and punishment, we will examine who was deemed deviant and criminal,
who made that judgement and who had to authority to determine guilt
and punishment. In an effort to answer these questions I have structured
this class around three primary axes: social class, gender, race/religion.
These four categories frequently determined a person’s level
of power in society and also their ability to navigate the legal system.
Social class and gender were divisions that existed in all areas of
Europe. The vast majority of Europeans were Christian, belonging to
the Catholic faith until the Reformations of the early sixteenth century,
however after the schism of Christendom different groups declared
each other heretical and engaged in warfare against and persecution
of those who held the “wrong beliefs”. In addition, before
1492 Spain had a considerable portion of Jews and Muslims. By the
sixteenth century it was illegal to belong to either of these faiths
and the Inquisition patrolled Spain in an effort to locate and punish
those practicing the forbidden faiths. Race played a small role in
European power struggles in the early modern period, because few non-whites
were in Europe. However, some people considered Judasim and Islam
as races more than religions. Also the Spanish and Italians engaged
in trade (legal and illegal) with north Africans and Middle Easterners
so there were moments during which race was important to the early
modern legal system. The semester will end with an exploration of
systems of punishment. How did the nature of punishment change over
the course of the early modern period? Why did criminal trials begin
to rely less on torture and gruesome punishments and more on incarceration?
Our discussion of punishment will be framed by Michel Foucault’s
monumental work, Discipline and Punish.
Class will consider European history from the late Middle Ages, the
Italian Renaissance and continent Europe and England until the French
Revolution of 1789. This class is NOT organized chronologically, it
is laid out thematically. Given the multitude of different legal systems
in Europe what was a crime in one place might not have been in another
and there were temporal changes. We will discuss change over time
but do not use time as the framework for this class.
I will base the grades in this class upon one oral presentation of
a week’s readings, one short paper (8-10 pages) and one long
paper (15-18 pages), as well as class participation (including a presentation
of your research). There will be no examinations.
Grade Distribution:
Short paper: 30%
Research Presentation & reading presentation 15%
Long paper: 45%
Class participation 10%
Required books:
All books are available at the campus bookstores. They are also on
reserve at the library’s circulation desk.
Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
Foucault, Michel.
. NY: Vintage Books, 1979.
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London:
Prostitution and Control in the Metropolis, 1730-1830. NY: Longman,
1999.
Roper, Lyndal. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, sexuality and
religion in early modern Europe. NY: Routledge, 1994.
Class
Schedule:
PART ONE THE EARLY MODERN LEGAL SYSTEM
Week One Church Law
9/12 Introduction
9/14 Lecture: Roman Law
Readings: Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. (1-34)
Week Two State Law
9/19 Lecture: Germanic Law
9/21 English Canon Law
Readings:
Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1983. (35-104)
Wiesner, Merry. “Frail, weak, and helpless: women’s legal
position in theory and reality,” in Gender, Church and State
in Early Modern Germany. NY: Longman, 1998, 84-93.
PART TWO SOCIAL CLASS
Week Three Poverty and Criminality
9/26 Lecture: Punishing the Poor
9/28 Class Discussion
Readings
Davis, Natalie Zemon. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1983. (105-125)
Hufton, Olwen. “Begging, Vagrancy, Vagabondage and the Law”
European Studies Review 2 / 2 (1972): 97-123.
McMullan, John L., “The Labor Market, the Law, and Crime,”
in The Canting Crew. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press,
1984, 26-51.
Week Four Crimes against Property
10/3 Lecture: Smuggling, Poaching and Piracy
10/5 Class Discussion
Readings
McLynn, Frank. “Poaching,” in Crime and Punishment in
Eighteenth-century England. NY: Routledge, 1989, 202-217
Winslow, Cal. “Sussex Smugglers,” in Albion’s Fatal
Tree, edited y Hay, Douglas, et.al. NY: Pantheon Books, 1975, 119-166.
Week Five Riots and Rebellions
10/10 Class Discussion
Readings
Bercé, Yves-Marie. “Types of Riots in the Seventeenth
Century,” History of Peasant Revolts. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1990, 169-243.
Thompson, E.P., “The Moral Economy of the English Crown in the
Eighteenth Century” in Customs in Common. NY: The New Press,
1991, 185-258.
10/12 Lecture: Crimes of Men, Violence and Disorder
Readings
PART THREE GENDER AND CRIMINALITY
Week Six Crimes of Men and Women
10/17 Class Discussion
Readings
Davis, Natalie Zemon, “Angry Men and Self Defense,” in
Fiction in the Archives. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1987, 36-76.
Foyster, Elizabeth. Manhood in Early Modern England. NY: Longman,
1999, 147-206.
Roper, Lyndal. “Blood and Codpieces: masculinity in the early
modern German town” in Oedipus and the Devil. NY: Routledge,
1994.
10/19 Lecture: Crimes of Women, Prostitution and Infanticide
Week Seven Sexual Crimes
10/24 Class Discussion
Readings:
Henderson, Tony. Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London: Prostitution
and Control in the Metropolis, 1730-1830. NY: Longman, 1999. (skip
chapter two)
10/26 IN CLASS WRITING CRITIQUE
All students must bring two typed copies of their short essay to class
Week Eight Sexual Crimes
10/31 Lecture: Rape, Sodomy and Fornication
11/2 Class Discussion
Readings
Rocke , Michael. “Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy,”
in Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy, edited by Judith C. Brown
and Robert C. Davis. NY: Longman, 1998, 150-170
Tomaselli, Sylvana and Porter, Roy. “Rape – Does it have
a historical meaning?” in Rape. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986, 216-236.
Walker, Catherine. “Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early
Modern England,” Gender and History 10 (1998): 1-25.
SHORT PAPER DUE, IN CLASS ON THURSDAY 2 NOVEMBER.
PART FOUR RELIGION
Week Nine Witchcraft
11/7 NO CLASS – Election Day
11/9 NO CLASS
Week Ten Christianity and Criminality
11/14 Heresy and Witchcraft
11/16 Class Discussion
Readings
Roper, Lyndal. “Witchcraft and fantasy in early modern Germany,”
in Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, sexuality and religion in early
modern Europe. NY: Routledge, 1994: 199-225.
Roper, Lyndal. “Oedipus and the Devil,” in Oedipus and
the Devil: Witchcraft, sexuality and religion in early modern Europe.
NY: Routledge, 1994: 226-248.
Roper, Lyndal. “Drinking, whoring and gorging: brutish indiscipline
and the formation of Protestant identity,” in Oedipus and the
Devil: Witchcraft, sexuality and religion in early modern Europe.
NY: Routledge, 1994: 145-167.
Starr-Lebeau, Gretchen, “Mari Sanchez and Ines Gonzalez: Conflict
and Cooperation among Crypto-Jews, “ in Women in the Inquisition,
ed. Mary Giles. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.,
19-41.
Week Eleven Race
11/21 Lecture: Religion, Race and the Spanish Inquisition
11/23 NO CLASSES – Thanksgiving Day
Readings: Pike, Ruth, “Overseas Presidios: The Caribbean,”
in Penal Servitude in Early Modern Spain. Madison, WI: The University
of Wisconsin Press, 1983, 134-147.
UNIT THREE METHODS OF PUNISHMENT
Week Twelve Traditions of Punishments
11/28 Lecture: Traditional Prisons and Punishment
11/30 Class Discussion
Readings:
Roper, Lyndal. “Will and Honor: sex, words and power in Augsburg
criminal trials,” in Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, sexuality
and religion in early modern Europe. NY: Routledge, 1994: 37-52.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. NY: Vintage Books, 1979,
3-69.
Week Thirteen Enlightened Challenges
12/5 Class Discussion
Readings:
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. NY: Vintage Books, 1979,
73-131.
12/7 Student Research Presentations
Readings
Week Fourteen Punishment and History
12/12 Student Research Presentations
12/14 Student Research Presentations
FINAL PAPER DUE ON TUESDAY DECEMBER 19TH. NO LATER THAN NOON. TURN
PAPERS INTO THE HISTORY OFFICE, HAVE THE SECRETARY SIGN AND DATE YOUR
PAPER. MY OFFICE IN 306 HOXIE, SLIP YOUR PAPER UNDER MY DOOR OR PUT
IT IN MY MAILBOX.