CRIME AND SOCIETY, 1550-1750LECTURE 4: PUNISHMENT

Next Week’s reading

Malcolm Gaskill, ‘The Pursuit of Reality: Recent Research into the History of Witchcraft’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 51 (2008), 1069-1088.

As the abstract for the above article states, this ‘Review Article’ considers the state of the field, an in particular reviews nine recent works on the history of witchcraft. For each of those nine works discussed by the author, think about what Gaskill believes is the point of each, and how those works come together to inform our current understanding of the field.

Part 2: I also want you to bring in one piece of visual or written evidence related to early modern witchcraft. This could be a play, a sermon, or a woodcut image. We will be discussing what you bring with the group, so consider what it can tell us about views of witchcraft during the period. You’ll need to do a bit of digging to make sure you have enough contextual information about your item to explain it to your classmates.

Outline of the lecture

Gaining Information via TortureVarious forms of punishment Which crimes were subject to what

punishmentsThe relative frequency with which

punishments were employed

Torture

A means of gaining information Required Royal Consent The ‘Rack’

Decline of Torture – 17th c.

King v. Parliament Assassination of

Duke of Buckingham by John Felton, 1628

Judges declare torture illegal

Types of punishment

Public displayExecution -

Hanging and burning

Pillory/StocksDuckingWhipping

PrivateFinesTransportatio

nPrisonBranding

Fines

Common punishment of petty crimes

Smallish sums in many cases: punishment for trespass, defamation, scolding, drunkenness

Compensation for victim

Fines - Local Examples from Hertfordshire

Hertford Borough Monthly Court, June 1625

“At this court Thomas Lea, Shoemaker, being convicted of opprobrious words –spoken against Mr Keeling, Mr Bull and Mr card it is ordered that a distresse be awarded against the said Thomas Lea forthwith for the sum of 3s 4d for breaking of the by law.” (Vol 20 f 91v)

1748 Indictment – Thomas and Mary Fiffis alias Vickis and Elizabeth Thomas , all of Standon, for rioting and assaulting John King – fined 4s each.

Herts County Records Vol VII (1931) Sessions Books 1700-1750

Fines - Rape

Ducking

Manorial & Borough courts

Pre-1550 used for trade crimes, prostitutes & cheats

By 1600 used for scolding – usually women

Maintenance of equipment was expensive

Scolds’ bridles or branks

Device for punishing scolds and gossipers and slanderers

Used in 16th and 17th century especially in Scotland – mainly used on women.

Pillory

Punishment was part physical and part psychological

Used for petty crimes and for punishing ‘sturdy’ beggars

Also used to humiliate notorious criminals: extortionists, seditious individuals, fraudsters, perjurers, sodomites

Use of stocks

Hertford Quarter Sessions 1647

“The constables of Hoddesdon & Amwell to take Robert Blemley of Amwell to Hoddesdon for Market Day to set in the public stocks… at 2.00pm till 4.00 pm as he stands convicted of profane swearing 10 oaths and has not paid the fine of 10 shillings” (HALS QSB2B f 79)

Broughton Stocks

Whipping

Whipping - Hertford examples

“Helen Styles found to be “a very lewd and publique strumpet”, to be whipped in the public market at Hertford, and kept to hard labour in the House of Correction for a month, and not to be delivered until she finds sureties” (HALS QSB3 Jan 1666)

“Moses Dunkley, convicted of larceny on his own confession to be publicly whipped in the Angel Inn Yard, in Hertford and then to be discharged.” (HALS QSB5 3 Oct 1698 )

Ear cropping or nose slitting

Example: William Prynne, a London lawyer convicted of seditious libel in 1634

Tried by the Star Chamber and punished by:

£10,000 fine , degraded by Oxford Uni and Lincoln’s Inn

Stood in the pillory at Westminster and Cheapside , one ear cut off and nose slit, forehead branded , sentenced to perpetual imprisonment

Incarceration / Imprisonment

Not common in our period

Gaols were for holding criminals awaiting trial not really suitable for punishment

Becoming more common in 18th century though

1706 a statute was passed which allowed judges to pass sentences of up to 2 years hard labour

Condition of Hertford Gaol

Hertford Quarter Sess1ons 11 January 1647

“John Danyell, keeper of the common gaole at Hertford… being questioned for the escape of prisoners out of the same gaole, informed the court that the walls and other places…were so old weake and ruinous and decayed that it was impossible to keep prisoners safe in the said gaole. And alsoe that on the side of the same gaole were certain lowe shedds or buildings erected, which gave prisoners breaking out of that gaole great advantage to escape and goe quite away.” (HALS QSB2B f77)

Execution

Post-hanging Dissection

Struggles for possession of the corpse

Anatomists vs proper burial

Growth of scientific interest in anatomy post 1660 - Royal Society

Means of avoiding death penalty

Benefit of clergy, only for first felony and it excluded treason rape, murder

1550 exemptions – 1624 extended to women

Benefit of belly or womb –reprieve if pregnant

Royal pardon

Transportation

Major innovation in penal practice

Primary motivations deterrent effect and removal of criminals from society.

Convicts transported at own expense or expense of merchants or ship-owners.

Alternative to death penalty but without leniency of benefit of clergy etc.

Conclusion

State monopoly of legal violence Seen as legitimate when used on social

inferiors Corporal & capital punishment create

spectacle Intended to act as a deterrent Punishment, not reform.