Crime and Society in England 1550-1750

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Crime and Society in England, 1550-1750

One way of understanding early-modern English society is to look at the nature of criminal activity, and the perception and response to crime in the period.

Course Details

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5HUM1033, University of Hertfordshire (2015-16).

Module Leader: Adam Crymble (a.crymble@herts.ac.uk)

  • 11am seminar leader – Adam Crymble – Office Hours: R330 – Mondays 1-3pm; Fridays 12-1pm.
  • 1pm seminar leader – Peter D’Sena (p.dsena@herts.ac.uk) – Office Hours: R330 – Monday 1.15-2.15pm; Tuesday 3.15-4.15pm..

This module will focus, in particular, on how criminality was interpreted differently by different sections of society over time. As much attention will be paid to the pattern and nature of petty crimes such as poaching and defamation, as to serious crimes such as murder and treason. There will be a considerable emphasis on understanding the system of justice and the nature of law enforcement in the period.

The module aims to enable students acquire the following learning outcomes and transferrable skills:

  1. Acquire a substantial knowledge of crime and responses to crime in the period;
  2. Gain a wide understanding of historiographical approaches to the history of crime;
  3. Where appropriate, read, analyse and reflect critically upon primary historical sources;
  4. Develop and sustain historical arguments in a variety of literary forms;
  5. Develop the subject-specific skills involved in the practice of history.

These learning outcomes will be achieved through lectures and small group discussions as well as independent learning. Students will be expected to read a range of primary and secondary sources and to prepare for seminars in advance. All seminar activities are outlined in this module guide for each week, so you have everything you need to prepare.

The course meets once a week for a 1 hour lecture (Friday 10-11am) and a 1 hour seminar (either 11-12pm or 1-2pm depending on your allotted time). Students will be expected to engage actively in seminar discussions and to come to all classes with readings done. Students who fail to arrive prepared will not be allowed to sign the attendance register.

Attendance at all scheduled learning and teaching sessions is required on this module. If attendance falls below 75% but not lower than 50% and the student passes the assessment, the module grade will be capped at the pass mark. If attendance falls below 75% and a student fails the assessment, or attendance falls below 50%, the student will normally be deemed to have failed the module at the first attempt and will not be permitted to undertake referred assessment in the module.

If you need to contact me or if you have any concerns about the module or your progress, you can email me at a.crymble@herts.ac.uk or visit me during my office hours (listed above).

Helpful Resources

The following resources have been compiled to help you keep organised and to provide useful background details for completing your course work. Please spend some time familiarising yourself with these items.

Weekly Topics & Readings

  1. What is a Crime?
  2. The Courts
  3. Policing and Prosecution
  4. Punishment
  5. Witchcraft
  6. Crime and Gender
  7. Strangers and Community Harmony
  8. Illegal Beliefs
  9. Urban Crime and Poverty
  10. Crime at Work
  11. Smuggling
  12. Fear and Violence

Assignments and Grading

Students are expected to come to class having done the Core Reading, and ready to discuss what they have read. Readings have been selected to provide a range of historiographical positions on the themes of the module. You are of course encouraged to do the Supplemental Reading as well and if doing an essay on the material covered by a weekly topic, would be expected to do so.

There is no exam for this course. Assessment is based on 3 assignments. All work must be submitted via Studynet. The assessment criteria are available on Studynet on the page for each individual assignment. These are the generic History department assessment criteria. The lateness policy for assessed work can be found on Studynet under ‘Module Information -> Information on Assessments’. The first two assignments are linked and will result in you submitting an essay in response to the question: What sources have historians used to investigate crime between 1550 and 1750 and what impact has that had on our understanding of the early modern criminal?

  1. Annotated Bibliography (20% of total mark)

    Due: 6 November 2015

    Assignments one and two are linked. For assignment 2 you will be required to submit a 1,500-word essay in response to the question: What sources have historians used to investigate crime between 1550 and 1750 and what impact has that had on our understanding of the early modern criminal?

    In preparation for this piece of work, assignment 1 requires you to produce an annotated bibliography on the topic of the sources used by historians of early modern crime.

    The aim of this assignment is to get you to think about how to construct a good bibliography and to test your understanding of the department’s guidelines on presentation and referencing. To that end you are asked to produce a bibliography containing at least 7 items. You may choose books, journal articles, essays in edited volumes, electronic resources or primary sources, if you think they are appropriate. You must also make brief comments about the relevance of the work you have chosen. Marks will be awarded for the accuracy of the bibliographic details, presentation, and appropriate comments on the type and relevance of the chosen items in your bibliography.

    Instructions for completing the task:

    1. Collect your sources. You must choose works that will help you write the essay set for assignment 2.
    2. Identify and analyse your sources – remember your analysis will be based on how these works will support the arguments you will use in your essay.
    3. Prepare a brief (2-3 sentence) overview of each source.
    4. Compile your bibliography as shown in the Example annotated bibliography (click to download). You will lose marks if your citations do not conform PRECISELY to the department’s guidelines.

  2. Essay 1 (30% of total mark)

    Due: 27 November 2015

    You are asked to write a 1,500 word essay in response to the following question: What sources have historians used to investigate crime between 1550 and 1750 and what impact has that had on our understanding of the early modern criminal?

    When preparing your essay please bear in mind the following general points:

    • You must append your bibliography to your essay. It must contain a minimum of 8 entries.
    • You may use the bibliography compiled for assignment 1 when preparing your response but may also make changes to that bibliography in light of the tutor’s subsequent suggestions and comments.
    • You must give the source of any quotations, figures etc. in the form of a footnote.
    • Your essay must conform to the style guidelines laid down in the history subject guide.
    • Please ensure that you do not copy out (i.e. plagiarise) unattributed sentences or passages from secondary works.

  3. Essay 2 (50% of total mark)

    Due: 20 December 2015

    You are asked to write a 2,500 word essay responds to one of the following questions. If none of the following questions appeal, you may devise an alternative in consultation with your tutor.

    When preparing your essay please bear in mind the following general points:

    • You must append your bibliography to your essay. It must contain a minimum of 8 entries.
    • You must give the source of any quotations, figures etc. in the form of a footnote.
    • Your essay must conform to the style guidelines laid down in the history subject guide.
    • Please ensure that you do not copy out (i.e. plagiarise) unattributed sentences or passages from secondary works.
    • Try whenever possible to make use of evidence from primary sources.
    1. Were women at an advantage over men when facing a jury between 1550 and 1750?
    2. Did the role of religion in shaping what was deemed ‘criminal’ decline between 1550 and 1750?
    3. What was the intended purpose of early modern punishments, and did the punishments used serve that purpose between 1550 and 1750?
    4. Were the streets of London safer in 1750 than in 1550?
    5. Were newcomers and outsiders to the community treated differently by the law than established families between 1550 and 1750?

  • Week 1 – What is a Crime?

    This week we will cover the basics for the course, including expectations, a description of course work, and a discussion on what a crime actually is. In this opening lecture we will discuss approaches to studying early-modern crime.

    Slides

    Download Week 1 Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    This week will get you set up for the term. Make sure you bring your student card to class. You will need it. Seminars will meet at the LRC on College Lane, where we will familiarise ourselves with the books relevant to the module and where we can find them. Students hoping to do well in the module are strongly encouraged to read the book by J.A. Sharpe listed below, which will provide you with a solid background in the period we will be covering so that you can focus your energy on the ‘historiography’.

    Intended Learning Objectives:

    • To learn where in the LRC you can find relevant resources for your assignments
    • To learn how to use the new library catalogue
    • To learn to plan ahead and make micro and macro goals towards getting assignments finished
    • To learn to look beyond traditional history books for relevant works

    Core Reading

    1. J.A. Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 1550-1750, (1998).

  • Week 2 – The Courts

    We will examine the work of the various criminal courts and consider the range of relevant sources through which their work can be interpreted. One of our aims will be to understand how historians have used the records generated by various courts in their interpretations of the causes of criminal behaviour.

    Slides

    Download Week 2 Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    For seminar today come prepared to discuss the article by J.S. Cockburn listed in the Core Reading. Make use of the Glossary of relevant terms (PDF) when you come across a word you don’t know. Do not skip over new words. Ensure you can identify the following questions:

    Core Reading

    1. J.S. Cockburn, ‘Early-modern assize records as historical evidence’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, vol. 5, no. 4 (1975), pp. 215-231.
    2. Excerpts: Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings, pp 92.
    3. Excerpts: ‘Somerset Assizes Held at Chard, 29 March 1641, before Robert Foster, J.’, Western Circuits Assizes Orders 1629-1648, pp 214-215. [Download]
    4. Excerpts: ‘Quarter Sessions Papers’. [Download]
    • Why did he write this article? (what is the point?)
    • What is his position? (what does he argue?)
    • What did you learn about the surviving records of the Assizes?

    We will also be talking about the differences between the various courts operating in early modern England. Read the three excerpts from the Assizes, Ecclesiastical, and Quarter Sessions courts in the Core Reading. Each one is only a page long. Think about the types of conflicts people are resolving in each court, as well as the types of evidence available in these records.

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. Ronald Marchant, The Puritans and the Church Courts in the Diocese of York 1560-1642 (London, 1960).
    2. J.S. Cockburn, History of English Assizes 1558-1714 (London, 1972).
    3. J.M. Beattie, ‘Crime and the courts in Surrey, 1736-1753’, in Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England 1550-1800 (1977).
    4. Martin Ingram, ‘Communities and courts: law and disorder in early-seventeenth-century Wiltshire’, in Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England, 1550-1800 (1977).
    5. T.C. Curtis, ‘Quarter Sessions appearances and their background: a seventeenth-century regional study’, in Cockburn (ed.), Crime in England 1550-1800 (1977).
    6. John Brewer and John Styles (eds.), An ungovernable people: the English and their law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (London, 1980).
    7. Douglas Hay, ‘The criminal prosecution in England and its historians’, Modern Law Review, vol. 47 (1984), 1-29.
    8. J.A. Sharpe, ‘The People and the Law’, in Barry Reay (ed.), Popular Culture in Seventeenth Century England, (London, 1985), pp 244-270.
    9. Beattie, J.M. Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800 (Princeton, 1986)
    10. J.A. Sharpe, ‘Quantification and the History of Crime in Early Modern England: Problems and Results’, Historical Social Research, Vol. 15, no. 4 (1990), 17-32.
    11. John L. McMullan, ‘Crime, law and order in early modern England’, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 27 (1991), 252-74.
    12. Robert Shoemaker, ‘Using quarter sessions records as evidence for the study of crime and criminal justice’, Archives, Vol. 20 (1993), 145-57.
    13. Christopher W. Brooks and Michael Lobban (eds.), Communities and courts in Britain, 1150-1900 (London, 1997).
    14. Christopher Harrison, ‘Manor courts and the governance of Tudor England, in Brooks and Lobban (eds.), Communities and courts in Britain, (1997) pp. 43-61.
    15. J.R. Dickinson and J.A. Sharpe, ‘Courts, Crime and Litigation in the Isle of Man, 1580-1700’, Historical Research, Vol. 72 (1999), 140-59.
    16. Peter King, Crime, Justice and Discretion in England, 1740-1820 (Oxford, 2000).
    17. Norma Landau, Law, crime and English society, 1660-1830 (Cambridge, 2002).
    18. J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, (London, 2002).
    19. Sharon Howard, Law and disorder in early modern Wales: crime and authority in the Denbighshire Courts, c.1660-1730 (Wales, 2008).
    20. David Lemmings, Crime, Courtrooms and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700-1850 (London, 2012).
    21. Robert Shoemaker, et. al, ‘The Value of the Proceedings as a Historical Source’, The Old Bailey Proceedings Online [http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Value.jsp].

  • Week 3 – Policing, and Prosecution

    This week we will look at the role of constables, justices, juries, witnesses and judges. And we will consider legislative responses to crime and fear of crime during our period. We will explore historians’ changing interpretations of crime detection and prevention prior to the introduction of a professional police force.

    Slides

    Download Week 3 – slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    This week we will be discussing a historiographical debate related to the history of crime. You will need to come with an understanding of the historical context of the debate. To help you, here are some questions to consider in relation to Albion’s Fatal Tree:

    Core Reading

    1. Excerpt from: Douglas Hay, Albion’s Fatal Tree (London, 1977), pp 56-63. [Download]
    2. John Langbein, ‘Albion’s Fatal Flaws’, Past and Present, No. 98, (1983), pp. 96-120.

    A. Hay’s views
    1. Why were more statutes carrying the death penalty passed by Parliament in the period after the Restoration of 1660 & what was the effect? (p56)
    2. Why were these statutes not strictly enforced in the localities up to c. 1750? (pp56-7)
    3. Why did the gentry in Parliament reject the reform proposals along the lines suggested by Beccaria? (pp57-8)
    4. What were the effects of the denial of the Divine Right of Kings & the Hanoverian Succession on English justice? (pp58-9)
    5. Why did the gentry in the 18th century prefer summary justice to national reform of the legal system? ( (p59)
    6. How was property protected in the 18th century and why was there a division of interest about the purpose of the criminal law? (pp59-60)
    7. How did the political elite, otherwise referred to as ‘the ruling class’ maintain its power in the 18th century? (pp61-3)

    B. Langbein’s views
    8. On what grounds does Langbein criticize Hay’s thesis? (pp114-5)
    9. Why does Langbein think the ruling elite resisted reform of the criminal law? (p115)
    10. Why was the introduction of professional police forces opposed in the 18th century? (p116)
    11. How did Radzinowicz’s ideas differ from Hay’s? (p116)
    12. What was the effect of benefit of clergy on the legal system? (p117)
    13. What was ‘unscientific’ about the English legal system? (pp117-8)
    14. What was the effect on the legal system of having no central direction behind it? (p118)
    15. What did Langbein argue was the role of ‘discretion’ in the English legal system? (p119-20)

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. J.H. Gleason, The Justices of the Peace in England, 1558 to 1640 (London, 1969).
    2. Keith Wrightson, ‘Two concepts of order: justices, constables and jurymen in seventeenth-century England’, in Brewer and Styles (eds.), An ungovernable people (1980).
    3. Joan Kent, ‘The English village constable, 1580-1642: The nature and dilemmas of the office’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 20 (1981), 26-49.
    4. Norma Landau, The Justices of the Peace, 1679-1760 (London, 1984).
    5. Douglas Hay, ‘The Criminal Prosecution in England and its Historians’, The Modern Law Review, Vol. 47, No. 1 (1984), 1-29.
    6. Cynthia Herrup, ‘New shoes and mutton pies: investigative responses to theft in seventeenth-century east Sussex’, Historical Journal, Vol. 27 (1984), 811-30.
    7. Clive Emsley, ‘Detection and Prevention: The Old English Police and the New, 1750-1900’, Historical Social Research, Vol. 37 (1986), 69-88.
    8. Cynthia B. Herrup, The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1987).
    9. John Styles, ‘Print and policing: crime advertising in eighteenth-century provincial England’, in Hay and Snyder (eds.), Policing and prosecution in Britain, (1989).
    10. Robert Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, c. 1660-1725 (Cambridge, 1991).
    11. Nicholas Rogers, ‘Policing the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Lodnon: The Vagrancy Laws and their Administration’, Social History, Vol. 24 (1991), 127-147.
    12. Thomas Skyrme, History of the Justices of the Peace (Barry Rose, 1994).
    13. Malcolm Gaskill, ‘The displacement of Providence: policing and prosecution in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 11, (1996), 341-74.
    14. Paul Griffiths et. al. (eds.), The experience of authority in early modern England (Basingstoke, 1996).
    15. Peter King, Crime, Justice and Discretion in England, 1740-1820, (Oxford, 2000).
    16. J.M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London 1660-1720 (Oxford, 2001).
    17. Allyson May, The Bar and the Old Bailey, (London, 2003).
    18. Tim Hitchcock et. al, The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, (2003-2015), http://oldbaileyonline.org.
    19. Randall McGowan, ‘The Bank of England and the Policing of Forgery’, Past and Present, Vol. 186 (2005), 81-116.
    20. Faramerz Dabhoiwala, ‘Summary Justice in Early Modern London’, The English Historical Review, Vol. 121 (2006), 796-822.
    21. John Beattie, ‘Early Detection: The Bow Street Runners in Late Eighteenth-Century London’, in Clive Emsley and Haia Shpayer-Makov (eds.), Police Detectives in History, 1750-1950, (Aldershot, 2006), 15-32.
    22. Sharon Howard, Law and disorder in early modern Wales: crime and authority in the Denbighshire Courts, c.1660-1730 (Wales, 2008).
    23. David Lemmings, Crime, Courtrooms and the Public Sphere in Britain, 1700-1850 (London, 2012).

  • Week 4 – Punishment

    This week we will consider the nature and application of various punishments including fines, whipping, the pillory, imprisonment, transportation and execution, as well as early modern ideas about torture. Our particular focus will be the purpose of public display in corporal and capital punishment.

    Slides

    Download Week 4 – Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    Core Reading

    1. Andrea McKenzie, ‘Martyrs in Low Life? Dying “Game” in Augustan England’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 42 (2003), 167-205.

    We will be discussing punishment as a form of deterrence. When reading the McKenzie article, make sure you know the author’s thesis (argument), but also the following, which you should bring to seminar:

    1 What are the different interpretations of the significance of public execution in the early modern period? (Pages 167-70)
    2 What problems are posed by the sources for ‘Game’ criminals? (Pages 170-3)
    3 What significance was attached to the final words of the condemned? (Page 173)
    4 What kind of censorship was imposed on dying speeches?
    5 What was seen as significant about the ‘courage and cheerfulness’ of the condemned on the scaffold?
    6 What role did expressions of religious belief and Protestantism play in speeches on the scaffold and how far were these expressions believable?
    7 How was the ‘game’ criminal perceived to be different from others?
    8 What was the role of the ordinary?
    9 What theological problems surrounded the idea of “free grace” when applied to criminals?
    10 What was the problem in believing that suffering purged the condemned of his sins and thus assured spiritual salvation?
    11 What subversive actions did some of the condemned perform on the gallows?
    12 What were perceived to be the signs of martyrdom or innocence in the condemned?

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. David Jardine, ‘On the Use of Torture in the Criminal Law of England’, (London, 1837).
    2. Patricia O’Brien, ‘Crime and punishment as historical problem’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 11 (1977-78).
    3. J. Samaha, ‘Hanging for Felony: The Rule of Law in Elizabethan Colchester’, Historical Journal Vol. 21 (1978), 763-82.
    4. W.J. King, ‘Punishment for Bastardy in Early Seventeenth-Century England’, Albion, Vol 10 (1978), 130-51.
    5. John Bellamy, The Tudor law of treason: an introduction (London, 1979).
    6. C.W. Chalkin, ‘The Reconstruction of London’s Prisons, 1770-1799: An Aspect of the Growth of Georgian London’, The London Journal, Vol. 9 (1983), 21-34.
    7. J.R. Kent, ‘”Folk Justice” and Royal Justice in Early Seventeenth-Century England: A “Charivari” in the Midlands’, Midlands History, Vol. 8 (1983), 70-85.
    8. Martin Ingram, ‘Ridings, Rough Music and the ‘Reform of Popular Culture’ in Early Modern England’, Past and Present, Vol. 105 (1984), 79-113.
    9. Roger A. Ekirch, ‘Bound for America: a profile of British convicts transported to the colonies, 1718-1775’, William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 42 (1985).
    10. J.A. Sharpe, ‘”Last dying speeches”: religion, ideology and public execution in seventeenth-century England’, Past and Present, Vol. 107 (1985), 144-67.
    11. P. Jenkins, ‘From Gallows to Prison? The Execution Rate in Early Modern England’, Criminal Justice History, Vol. 7 (1986), 51-71.
    12. J.A. Sharpe, Judicial punishment in England (1990).
    13. Robert Shoemaker, ‘The “Crime wave” revisited: crime, law enforcement and punishment in Britain, 1650-1900’, Historical Journal, Vol. 34 (1991), 763.
    14. Robert Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, c. 1660-1725, (Cambridge, 1991).
    15. Steve Hindle, ‘The shaming of Margaret Knowsley: gossip, gender and the experience of authority in early modern England’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 9 (1994), 391-419.
    16. Martin Ingram, ‘”Scolding women cucked or washed”: a crisis in gender relations in early modern England?, in Kermode and Walker (eds.), Women, crime and the courts (1994).
    17. Susan Dwyer Amussen, ‘Punishment, discipline and power: the social meanings of violence in early modern England’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 34 (1995), 1-34.
    18. Martin Ingram, ‘Jurisdicial Folklore in England Illustrated by Rough Music’, in Brooks and Lobban (eds.), Communities and Courts in Britain (1997), 61-83
    19. Randall McGowan, ‘From Pillory to Gallows: The Punishment of Forgery in the Age of the Financial Revolution’, Past and Present, Vol. 165 (1999), 107-140.
    20. J.M. Beattie, Policing and Punishment in London 1660-1720, (Oxford, 2001).
    21. Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged, (London, 2003).
    22. Thomas Laqueur, ‘Crowds, carnival and the state in English executions, 1604-1868’, in A.L. Beier et al (eds.), The First Modern Society (2005).
    23. Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, Tales from the Hanging Court, (London, 2007).
    24. K.J. Kesselring, ‘Felony Forfeiture and the Profits of Crime in Early Modern England’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 53 (2010) 271-288.

  • Week 5 – Witchcraft

    Witches speak to our 21st century imaginations, but for many early modernites they were very real threats to public order, dealt with by criminal law. This week we will consider the causes of these beliefs and what they tell us about the early modern world view.

    Slides

    Download Week 5 – Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    Core Reading

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

    Part 1: Read the above ‘review article’, in which the author considers what he believes to be the current state of witchcraft research, drawing on a number of important works in the field (as of 2008). This article’s survey of the ‘historiography’ will be invaluable for you as you start to consider your own Essay #1. As you read, you should end up with a fairly large list of new terms (demonology, new historicism, maleficium, relativism). When you come across one of these, check the ‘Glossary of Relevant terms’ for the module or turn to the Internet to see if you can define these and other specialist terms. Once you have a definition, try re-reading the sentence. Does it make more sense now?

    As you read, think about the ways that the author frames the changing approaches to the study of witches. As you go through, answer the following questions:

    1) What were the scholars of witchcraft research in each of the following periods primarily concerned with, and why were they thus concerned?:

    • The 18th century
    • The 19th century
    • WWI – 1970
    • The 1970s
    • The 1980s
    • The 1990s
    • The 2000s
    • The Future?

    For each period, also consider what Gaskill thinks of these approaches. Does he see some to be lacking and others particularly strong?

    2) Find an author or authors that Gaskill thinks produces particularly strong work. What makes their work so good in his opinion?
    3) Find an author or authors that Gaskill thinks produces particularly poor work. Again, what makes their work so flawed?
    4) If you were going to write an essay on witchcraft, what does this article suggest might be a good starting point for you? How does it change the way you might have otherwise approached the field?

    Part 2: I also want you to bring in one piece of visual or written evidence related to early modern witchcraft (no Disney stuff). 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.

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (1970).
    2. Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, (1971).
    3. C. Larner, Enemies of God: The Witch-Hunt in Scotland (1981).
    4. C. Holmes, ‘Witchcraft, religion, and magic’, in S. Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture (1987).
    5. Andrew Sneddon, Possessed by the Devil (1988).
    6. Annabel Gregory, ‘Witchcraft, Politics and “Good Neighbourhood” in Early Seventeenth-Century Rye’, Past and Present, Vol. 133 (1991), 31-66.
    7. C. Holmes, ‘Women: witnesses and witches’, Past and Present Vol. 140 (1993).
    8. J.A. Sharpe, ‘Women, witchcraft and the legal process’, in J. Kermode and G. Walker (eds.), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (1994).
    9. L. Jackson, ‘Witchcraft, wives and mothers’, Women’s History Review, Vol. 4 (1995).
    10. Diane Purkiss, ‘Women’s stories of witchcraft in early modern England: the house, the body, the child’, Gender and History, Vol. 7 (1995).
    11. J.A. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550-1750 (1996).
    12. Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History (1996).
    13. S. CLark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997).
    14. Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and its Transformations, c. 1650-1750 (1997).
    15. Malcolm Gaskill, ‘The Devil in the shape of a man: witchcraft, conflict and belief in Jacobean England’, Historical Research, Vol. 71 (1998).
    16. Malcolm Gaskill, ‘Chapter Two’, Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England (2000).
    17. J.A. Sharpe, The Bewitching of Anne Gunter (2000).
    18. S. Clark (ed.), Languages of Witchcraft: Narratives, Ideology and Meaning in Early Modern Culture (2001).
    19. E.J. Kent, ‘Masculinity and male witches in old and new England, 1593-1680’, History Workshop Journal, Vol. 60 (2005).
    20. Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders: a 17th-Century English Tragedy (2005).
    21. N. Johnstone, The Devil and Demonism in Early Modern England (2006).
    22. Deanna Petherbridge, Witches and Wicked Bodies (2013).

  • Week 6 – Crime and Gender

    This week will focus on the social and cultural contexts of various types of crime attributed to women and perpetrated against women, in particular scolding, infanticide and rape, as well as social expectations of the female role. It will consider why historians have disagreed about the nature and extent of criminal behaviour among early modern women.

    Slides

    Download Week 6 – Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    Core Reading

    1. Laura Gowing, ‘Secret Births and Infanticide in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past and Present, 156 (1997), pp. 87-115.

    Read the article by Laura Gowing listed in the Core Reading above. I would like you to compile a list of TEN intelligent questions which, if you were the tutor, you would ask your students to consider while working on the reading.

    At least one of the questions must concern the types of evidence used by Gowing. One of the question must relate to the language used by early modern men and women talking about pregnancy and birth.

    Other questions might concern the information contained within the articles, the sources used, the arguments put forward by the author and the methods she uses to make those argument.

    During the seminar you will have to justify your questions and your approach to their design, so please think carefully about what you want your ‘students’ to learn from the article and how your questions might direct or hinder that learning experience.

    Bring your list of questions with you – type-written, on one page and in a font of size 12 or above, so that they can be displayed on the visualiser during the class.

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders (1722).
    2. J.M. Beattie, ‘The criminality of women in eighteenth-century England’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 8 (1974-5), 80-116.
    3. Carol Z. Wiener, ‘Sex roles and crime in late Elizabethan Hertfordshire’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 8 (1975), 18-37.
    4. Keith Wrightson, ‘Infanticide in earlier seventeenth-century England’, Local Population Studies, Vol. 15 (1975), 10-22.
    5. W.J. King, ‘Punishment for Bastardy in Early Seventeenth-Century England’, Albion, Vol. 10 (1978), 130-51.
    6. J.A. Sharpe, ‘Domestic homicide in early modern England’, Historical Journal, Vol. 24 (1981), 29-48
    7. S.D. Amussen, Gender, Family and the Social Order, 1560-1725 (1985).
    8. David Underdown, ‘The taming of the scold: the enforcement of patriarchal authority in early modern England’, in Fletcher and Stevenson (eds.), Order and disorder in early modern England (1985).
    9. Martin Ingram, Church courts, sex and marriage, 1560-1640 (Cambridge, 1987).
    10. Lynda Boose, ‘Scolding brides and bridling scolds: taming the woman’s unruly member’, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol 42 (1991).
    11. W.R. Prest, ‘Law and women’s rights in early modern England’, Seventeenth Century, Vol. 6 (1991), 169-87.
    12. Joy Wittenburg, Disorderly women and female power in the street literature of early modern England and Germany (Virginia 1992).
    13. Susan Dwyer Amussen, ‘”Being stirred to much unquietness”: violence and domestic violence in early modern England’, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 6 (1994).
    14. Martin Ingram, ‘”Scolding women cucked or washed”: a crisis in gender relations in early modern England?’, in Kermode and Walker (eds), Women, crime and the courts (1994).
    15. Garthine Walker, ‘Women, theft and the world of stolen goods’, in Kermode and Walker (eds), Women, crime and the courts (1994).
    16. Steve Hindle, ‘The shaming of Margaret Knowsley: gossip, gender and the experience of authority in early modern England’. Continuity and Change, Vol. 9 (1994), 391-419.
    17. Laura Gowing, Domestic dangers: women, words and sex in early modern London (Oxford, 1996).
    18. R.H. Helmholz, ‘Harbouring Sexual Offenders: Ecclesiastical Courts and Controlling Misbehaviour’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 37 (1998), 258-68.
    19. Garthine Walker, ‘Rereading rape and sexual violence in early modern England’, Gender and History, Vol. 10 (1998), 1-25.
    20. Margaret Arnot and Cornelie Usborne, Gender and Crime in Modern Europe (London, 1999).
    21. Robert Shoemaker, ‘Reforming male manners: public insult and the decline of violence in London, 1660-1740’, in Tim Hitchcock and Michele Cohen (eds), English masculinities, 1660-1800 (1999).
    22. Julia Rudolph, ‘Rape and Resistance: Women and Consent in Seventeenth-Century English Legal and Political Thought’, Journal of British Studies Vol. 39 (2000), 157-85.
    23. J. Hurl-Eamon, ‘Domestic Violence Prosecuted: Women Binding over their Husbands for Assault at Westminster Quarter Sessions (1685-1720)’, Journal of Family History, Vol. 26 (2001), 435-54.
    24. Sandra Clark, Women and crime in the street literature of early modern England (London, 2003).
    25. Jennifer Kermode and Garthine Walker, Women, Crime, and the Courts in Early Modern England (London, 2004).
    26. Garthine Walker, Crime, gender and social order in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2004).
    27. Elizabeth Foyster, Marital Violence: an English family history (Cambridge, 2005).
    28. Nicholas Tosney, ‘Women and ‘False Coining’ in Early Modern London’, London Journal, Vol. 32 (2007), pp. 103-123.
    29. Anne-Marie Kilday, A History of Infanticide in Britain, c. 1600 to the Present (London, 2013).

  • Week 7 – Strangers and Community Harmony

    Early modern ‘communities’ were the core of many people’s experiences. From religious communities to physical neighbourhoods of like-minded people, the influx of strangers often presented challenges to people’s understanding of the world around them. This week we look at the experience of strangers and the community’s (often legal) response to their presence.

    Slides

    Download Week 7 – Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    Core Reading

    1. Lien Bich Luu, “‘Taking the bread out of our mouths’: Xenophobia in early modern London”, Immigrants and Minorities, Vol. 19 (2010), 1-22.

    We will be considering the reaction to immigrants in the early modern era, as well as attempting to put that reaction into the wider context of our module. Some questions to consider:

    1. What does ‘xenophobia’ mean?
    2. In three sentences max, what is the argument / thesis / position of the author?
    3. Which period is the author writing about? Do some digging elsewhere on the web (Wikipedia is allowed and Google Scholar or JStor searchings are also good). Write 250-300 words of historical context for the period the author is discussing. Who is the monarch? What are the major concerns of the age that might influence this topic? Think about things like: economics, disease and famine, population growth/decline, religious strife, etc. How might this affect the general knowledge we can take away from the article about earlier or later periods?
    4. What restrictions did immigrants face in this period?
    5. In what ways were the experiences of immigrants seemingly the same as that of the indigenous population?
    6. What are some of the reasons locals resented immigrants?
    7. How do immigrants react to their treatment?
    8. Is England’s approach to immigrants part of a universal trend, or are they unique?
    9. In what ways has this story changed in the present day, and in which ways is it the same?

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. Carl I. Hammer Jr., ‘The Mobility of Skilled Labour in Late Medieval England: Some Oxford Evidence’, VSWG: Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial – und Wirtschaftegeschichte, Vol. 63 (1976), 194-210.
    2. John Walter and Keith Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the Social Order in Modern England’, Past and Present, Vol. 71 (1976), 22-42.
    3. Hermann Kellenbenz, ‘German Immigrants in England’, in Colin Holmes (ed.), Immigrants and Minorities in British Society (1978), 63-80.
    4. P. Clark, ‘Migration in England during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries’, Past and Present, Vol. 83 (1979), 57-90.
    5. John Wareing, ‘Migration to London and transatlantic emigration of indentured servants, 1683-1775’, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 7 (1981), 356-378.
    6. Jeremy Boulton, ‘Neighbourhood migration in early modern London’ in Peter Clark and David Souden (eds.), Migration and Society in Early Modern England (1988), 107-149.
    7. Norma Landau, ‘The Regulation of Immigration, Economic Structures and Definitions of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century England’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 33 (1990), 541-571.
    8. Daniel Statt, ‘The City of London and the Controversy over Immigration, 1660-1722’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 33 (1990), 45-61.
    9. Ian Archer, ‘The Framework of Social Relations: Local government, neighbourhood, and community’, The Pursuit of Stability: Social Relations in Elizabethan London (1991), 58-99.
    10. Keith Snell, ‘Pauper settlement and the right to poor relief in England and Wales’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 6 (1991), 375-415.
    11. Annabel Gregory, ‘Witchcraft, Politics and “Good Neighbourhood” in Early Seventeenth Century Rye’, Past and Present Vol. 133 (1991), 31-66.
    12. Norma Landau, ‘The Eighteenth-century context of the laws of settlement’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 6 (1991), 417-439.
    13. Bridget Hill, ‘Rural-Urban Migration of Women and their Employment in Towns’, Rural History, Vol. 5 (1994), 185-194.
    14. Craig Muldrew, ‘The Culture of Reconciliation: Community and the Settlement of Economic Disputes in Early Modern England’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 39 (1996), 915-942.
    15. Judith M. Bennett, ‘Conviviality and Charity in Medieval and Early Modern England: Reply’, Past and Present, Vol. 154 (1997), 235-242.
    16. Steve Hindle, ‘Hierarchy and Community in the Elizabethan Parish: The Swallowfield Articles of 1596’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 42 (1999), 835-851.
    17. Ian Whyte, Migration and Society in Britain 1550-1830 (2000).
    18. Susan Brigden, ‘Family and Friends: Religion and the Social Order in Early Tudor England’, New Worlds, Lost Worlds (2000).
    19. Christopher Marsh, “‘Common Prayer’ in England 1560-1640: The View from the Pew”, Past and Present, Vol. 171 (2001), 66-94.
    20. Steve Hindle, ‘Dearth, Fasting and Alms: The Campaign for Generali Hospitality in Late Elizabethan England’, Past and Present, Vol. 172 (2001), 44-86.
    21. Steve Hindle, On the Parish? The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England, c.1550-1750 (2004).
    22. Lien Bich Luu, Immigrants and the Industries of London (2005).
    23. Donald M. MacRaild, The Irish Diaspora in Britain, 1750-1939 (Houndsmill, 2011).
    24. Keith Snell, ‘Belonging and community: understandings of ‘home’ and ‘friends’ among the English poor, 1750-1850′, The Economic History Review, Vol. 65 (2012), 1-25.
    25. Peter King, ‘Ethnicity, Prejudice and Justice. The Treatment of the Irish at the Old Bailey 1750-1825’, Journal of British Studies, Vol 52 (2013), 390-414.
    26. Janice Turner, ‘Ill-Favoured sluts? – The Disorderly Women of Rosemary Lane and Rag Fair’, The London Journal, Vol. 38 (2013), 95-109.
    27. Tim Hitchcock, Adam Crymble and Louise Falcini, ‘Loose, Idle and Disorderly: Vagrant removal in late eighteenth-century Middlesex’, Social History, Vol 39 (2014), 509-527.

  • Week 8 – Illegal Beliefs

    The conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the early modern era was one of the key issues facing societies across Europe. This week we will look at the changing legal approaches to people who had different beliefs, from Protestants under ‘Bloody Mary’ to the Irish under the ‘Penal Laws’.

    Slides

    Download Week 8 – Slides (ppt).

    Seminar

    Core Reading

    1. L. M. Cullen, ‘Catholics Under the Penal Laws’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 1 (1986), 23-36.

    Instead of answering the usual list of questions, once you have read the article, I would like you to write a short (250-300 words) paragraph on the aspect of the article that interested or intrigued you most. You might focus on the historiographical contexts and implications, the details of the circumstances described in the article, or the author’s arguments. You might find some other aspect of the article interesting. You should bring your work to class and be prepared to share it with the group.

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. S. Smiles, History of Ireland and the Irish people, under the government of England (1844).
    2. J.A. Froude, The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century: In 3 Volumes (1872).
    3. T. Arkins, ‘The Penal Laws and Irish Land’, An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 1 (1912), 514-523.
    4. T. Corcoran, ‘Catholic Teachers and the Penal Law of 1782’, The Irish Monthly, Vol. 59 (1931), 422-425.
    5. R.E. Burns, ‘The Irish Penal Code and Some of its Historians’, The Review of Politics, Vol. 21 (1959), 276-299.
    6. J.G. Simms, ‘The Making of a Penal Law (2 Anne c. 6), 1703-4’, Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 12 (1960), 105-118.
    7. Maureen Wall, ‘The Rise of the Middle Class in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth Century Ireland, Vol. 11, (1958), pp. 91-115.
    8. J. Samaha, ‘Sedition amongst the inarticulate in Elizabeth England’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 8 (1975), 61-79.
    9. R. F. Foster, ‘Chapter 7, 8 & 9’ Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988).
    10. C. Kenny, ‘The exclusion of Catholics from the legal profession in Ireland, 1537-1829’, Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 25 (1987), 337-357.
    11. E O’Flaherty, ‘Ecclesiastical politics and the dismantling of the penal laws in Ireland, 1774-82’, Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 26 (1988), 33-50.
    12. J. Hill, ‘Religious Toleration and the Relaxation of the Penal Laws: An Imperial Perspective, 1763-1780’, Archivium Hibernicum, Vol. 44 (1989), 98-109.
    13. T. P. Power and K. Whelan (eds), ‘Chapter 4’, Endurance and Emergence: Catholics in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (1990).
    14. D. W. Hayton, ‘The Williamite Revolution in Ireland, 1688-91’, in Jonathan Israel (ed.), The Anglo-Dutch Moment: Essays on the Glorious Revolution and its World Impact (1991), 185-213.
    15. P. H. Kelly, ‘Ireland and the Glorious Revolution: From Kingdom to Colony’, in R. Beddard (ed.), The Revolutions of 1688 (1991), 163-90.
    16. S. J. Connolly, ‘Chapter 7’, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland 1660-1760 (1992).
    17. T. Bartlett, The Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question 1690-1830 (1992).
    18. Kevin Whelan, ‘An Underground gentry? Catholic middlemen in eighteenth-century Ireland’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, Vol. 10 (1995), 7-68.
    19. S. J. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland 1660-1760 (1992).
    20. Kevin Whelan, The Tree of Liberty: Radicalism, Catholicism and the Construction of an Irish Identity 1760-1830 (1996), pp. 3-56.
    21. C.I. McGrath, ‘Securing the Protestant interest: the Origins and Purpose of the Penal Laws of 1695’, Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 30, (1996), pp 25-46.

  • Week 9 – Urban Crime and Poverty

    This week we’ll consider the unique challenges faced by London, the nation’s urban centre. With a large and constantly shifting population, unenviable poverty, and complicated legal jurisdictions, the Metropolis was anything but typical in the history of crime.

    Slides

    Week 9 – slides

    Seminar

    Core Reading

    1. Clive Emsley, Tim Hitchcock and Robert Shoemaker, ‘Crime, Justice, and Punishment: The Historical Background to the Proceedings of the Old Bailey’, The Old Bailey Online (version 7.2 – March 2015).
    2. Tim Hitchcock, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, ‘Researching Crime’, London Lives, (version 1.1 – April 2012).
    3. Tim Hitchcock, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, ‘Researching Poverty’, London Lives, (version 1.1 – April 2012).

    This week we are going to dive into the digital archive and explore some primary sources from the London area. We will focus on two great archives: The Old Bailey Online, and London Lives, which contain primary sources from the eighteenth century metropolis. First, read the helpful guides listed above, which will give you some context that will help you to understand these resources. They will also provide a good refresher for some of the things we’ve discussed in earlier weeks.

    Once you have finished reading the guides, I want you to dive into the digital archives and look for three (3) exemplary primary sources from BEFORE 1750 that you think epitomise the unique challenge London faced with regards to crime and poverty. Look for something that gives an interesting insight into metropolitan life and that you can share with the class. At least one of your examples must be from each of The Old Bailey Online, and London Lives. It would be helpful if you could print off an extra set of your sources so that we can more easily discuss them in small groups.

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. J Walter and K. Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the social order in early modern England’, Past and Present, Vol. 71 (1976), 22-42.
    2. Douglas Hay, ‘War, dearth and theft in the eighteenth century: the record of the English courts’. Past and Present, Vol. 95 (1982), 117-60
    3. J.A. Sharpe, ‘The History of Crime in Late Medieval and Early Modern England: A Review of the Field’, Social History, Vol. 7 (1982), 187-203.
    4. A.L. Beier, The Problem of the Poor in Tudor and Early Stuart England (1983).
    5. Peter Lawson, ‘Property Crime and Hard Times in England, 1559-1624’, Law and History Review, Vol. 4 (1986), 95-127.
    6. J. Stevenson, ‘Bread or blood’, in G E Mingay (ed), The unquiet countryside (London, 1989).
    7. Beverly Lemire. ‘The theft of clothes and popular consumerism in early modern England’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 24 (1990-91), 255-76
    8. Nicholas Rogers, ‘Policing the Poor in Eighteenth-Century London: The Vagrancy Laws and their Administration’, Social History, Vol. 24 (1991), 127-147.
    9. Robert Shoemaker, Prosecution and punishment: petty crime and the law in London and rural Middlesex, c.1660-1725 (Cambridge, 1991).
    10. B. Stapleton, ‘Inherited poverty and life-cycle poverty: Odiham, Hampshire, 1650-1850’, Social History, Vol. 18 (1993).
    11. Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and piety in an English village: Terling, 1525-1700 (2nd edn., Oxford, 1995).
    12. S. King, ‘Reconstructing lives: the poor, the poor law and welfare in Calverly, 1650-1820’, Social History, Vol. 22 (1997).
    13. John Broad, ‘Parish Economies of Welfare, 1650-1834’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 42 (1999), 985-1006.
    14. Illana Krausman Ben-Amos, ‘Gifts and Favors: Informal Support in Early Modern England’, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 72 (2000), 295-338.
    15. Tim Hitchcock, ‘The Publicity of Poverty in early modern London’, in J.F. Merritt, Imagining Early Modern London, (Cambridge, 2001), 166-184.
    16. Alannah Tomkins and Steven King, The Poor in England 1700-1850: An Economy of Makeshifts (2003).
    17. John Marriott, ‘The Spatiality of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century London’, in Tim Hitchcock and Heather Shore, The Streets of London: From the Great Fire to the Great Stink (London 2003), 119-134.
    18. Steve Hindle, ‘Dependency, Shame and Belonging: Badging the Deserving Poor, c.1550-1750’, Cultural and Social History Vol.1 (2004).
    19. Tim Hitchcock, ‘Begging on the Streets of Eighteenth-Century London’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 44 (2005), 478-498.
    20. Tim Hitchcock, Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London (London, 2007).
    21. Lena Cowen Orlin, ‘Temporary Lives in London Lodgings’, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 71 (2008), 219-242.
    22. Megan Webber, ‘Honest and Useful? The post-Institutional lives of Refuge for the Destitute Beneficiaries’, Journal of Social History (2015), 1-23.

  • Week 10 – Crime at work

    This week we will examine what probably was and still is the most common form of criminal activity – crime in the workplace. However these crimes were open to interpretation – in many settings, there were perks or perquisites to a job and goods taken from the workplace could often be viewed by both employees and employers as a legitimate form of remuneration. We will consider how these complex sets of shared understandings over customary rights changed in the long eighteenth century as a number of employers chose to view perks, even when not excessive, as criminal activity worthy of prosecution and punishment.

    Slides

    Week 10 – Slides

    Seminar

    This week I will be arranging individual meetings with everyone. You will have the opportunity to discuss the work you have submitted so far and your plans for the final essay.

    A sign-up sheet will be circulated in class on 27 November. If you do not attend that class, you should contact your seminar (a.crymble@herts.ac.uk or p.dsena@herts.ac.uk) to arrange a meeting.

    You should note that if you do not attend at your time slot then you will be marked absent in week 10.

    Core Reading

    1. Styles, J. ‘Embezzlement, Industry and Law in England, 1550-1780’. In Manufacture in Town and Country Before the Factory, ed. by M. Berg and P. Hudson and M. Sonenscher. 1983.
    2. MacKay, L. ‘Why They Stole: Women in the Old Bailey, 1779-1789’. Journal of Social History, Vol. 32 (1999).
    3. Bushaway, R. ‘From Custom to Crime: Wood Gathering in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century England: a focus for conflict in Hampshire, Wiltshire and the South’, in J. G. Rule Outside the Law: Studies in Crime and Order (University of Exeter Press, 1982).

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. Andrew, D. and McGowen, R. The Perreaus and Mrs Rudd: Forgery and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century London. Berkeley, 2001.
    2. Bushaway, R. By Rite: Custom, Ceremony and Community in England, 1700-1880 (Breviary Stuff Publications, 2011).
    3. Callahan, Kathy. ‘On the Receiving End: Women and Stolen Goods in London 1783‐1815’. The London Journal, 37:2 (2012).
    4. Colley, Robert. ‘The Shoreditch tax frauds: a study of the relationship between the state and civil society in 1860’. Historical Research, 78:202 (2005).
    5. D’Sena, P. ‘Perquisites and Casual Labour on the London Wharfside’. London Journal, 14 (1989).
    6. Handler, Phil. ‘Forgery and the End of the ‘Bloody Code’; in Early Nineteenth-Century England’. Historical Journal, 48:3 (2005).
    7. King, Peter. Crime, Justice and Discretion in England, 1740-1820. Oxford, 2000.
    8. Lemire, B. ‘The Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England’. Journal of Social History, 24 (1990).
    9. Lemire, B. ‘Peddling Fashion: Salesmen, Pawnbrokers, Tailors, Thieves and the Second-Hand Clothes Trade in England, c. 1700-1800’. Textile History, 22 (1991).
    10. Linebaugh, P. The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century. London, 1991.
    11. Meier, William M. ‘Going on the Hoist: Women, Work, and Shoplifting in London, ca. 1890–1940’. Journal of British Studies, 50:2 (2011).
    12. Neocleous, M. ‘Social Police and the Mechanisms of Prevention’, British Journal of Criminology, 40, pp. 710-726 (2000).
    13. Robb, George. White-collar crime in modern England: financial fraud and business morality, 1845-1929. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1992.
    14. Sindall, R. S. ‘Middle-class crime in nineteenth century England’. Criminal Justice History, 4 (1983).
    15. Shoemaker, R. B. ‘The Street Robber and the Gentleman Highwayman: Changing Representations and Perceptions of Robbery in London, 1690-1800’. Cultural and Social History, 3 (2006).
    16. Tickell, S. ‘The prevention of shoplifting in eighteenth-century London’. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 2:3 (2010).
    17. Thompson, E. P. ‘Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism’, Past and Present, 38, 1, pp. 56-97 (1967).
    18. Whitlock, Tammy C. Crime, gender, and consumer culture in nineteenth-century England. Ashgate: Aldershot, 2005.

  • Week 11 – Smuggling

    This week we will examine those activities sanctioned by communities but labelled crimes by the state. The main focus will be on smuggling, which in the eighteenth-century was seen by some to be the second largest ‘industry’ after the wool trade. We will also examine other forms of social crime, such as poaching, wrecking, violation of licensing laws and wood-gathering. We will consider the common characteristics of social crime and what social crimes can tell us about responses both to and from, power and authority.

    Slides

    Week 11 – Slides

    Seminar

    Core Reading

    1. P. Monod, ‘Dangerous merchandise: smuggling, Jacobitism, and commercial culture in Southeast England, 1690-1760′, Journal of British Studies Vol. 30 (1991), 150-182.
    2. Cal Winslow, ‘Sussex smugglers’, in Hay et al, Albion’s fatal tree (1977).
    3. J.A. Sharpe, ‘Social Crime and Legitimising Notions’, in Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750 (1998), 174-203.

    There are two parts to this seminar.

    Part 1. For this part, you will need to have read the core reading, above, and selections from the supplementary list, below, in order to write a short (200 to 300 word max.) piece which devotes half to demonstrating a clear understanding of the positions and justifications of either smugglers, poachers or those taking wood and the other half to analysing the views of employers, the judiciary and legislators who took alternative views. Be prepared to read your answer out to the rest of the group and to answer any questions that they will then ask.

    Part 2. For this part, you will need to download any two cases of pilfering at work form the Old Bailey Sessions Papers (using the oldbaileyonline.org site) – one with a guilty verdict, the other with an acquittal. Please bring two hard copies of each case to the seminar as you will have to give one to somebody else in the group. Working in groups of four, you will analyse the accusations, the justifications presented by defendants and the rationale for verdicts. Importantly, you will collaborate to come to a judgement about what the cases you have used tell you about ‘social criminality’.

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. P. Croft, ‘Trading with the Enemy, 1585-1604’, Historical Journal, Vol. 32 (1989).
    2. E. T. Jones, Inside the Illicit Economy: Reconstructing the Smugglers’ Trade of Sixteenth Century Bristol, (Ashgate, 2012).
    3. John U. Nef, ‘Richard Camarden’s “A Caveat for the Quene” (1570)’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 41 (1933), 33-41.
    4. D.H. Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy 1450-1700 (California, 1991).
    5. G. D. Ramsay, ‘The Smuggler’s Trade: A Neglected Aspect of English Commercial Development’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. II (1952).
    6. N.J. Williams, ‘Francis Shaxton and the Elizabethan Port Books’, English Historical Review, Vol. LXVI (1951).
    7. H. Perkin, ‘Social history in Britain’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 10 (1976), 129-143.
    8. E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common (The Merlin Press, 2009).
    9. E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: the origins of the Black Act (1977).
    10. Douglas Hay, ‘Poaching and the game laws on Cannock Chase’, in Hay et al, Albion’s fatal Tree (1977).
    11. John G. Rule, ‘Wrecking and coastal plunder’, in Hay et al. Albion’s Fatal Tree (1977).
    12. John Styles, ‘Criminal Records’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 20 (1977), 977-981.
    13. J.M. Neeson, ‘The Opponents of Enclosure in Eighteenth-Century Northamptonshire’, Past and Present, Vol. 105 (1984), 114-139.
    14. C.B. Herrup, The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England (1989).
    15. P. King, ‘Gleaners, Farmers and the Failure of Legal Sanctions in England 1750-1850′, Vol. 125 Past and Present (1989), 116-150.
    16. D. Oberwittler, ‘Crime and Authority in Eighteenth Century England: Law Enforcement on the Local Level’, Historical Social Research, Vol. 15 (1990), 3-34.
    17. Peter King, ‘Customary rights and women’s earnings: the importance of gleaning to the rural labouring poor, 1750-1850′, Economic History Review, Vol. 44 (1991), 461-476.
    18. Roger Manning, Hunters and poachers: A social and cultural history of unlawful hunting, 1485-1640 (1993).
    19. J. Lea ‘Social Crime Revisited’, Theoretical Criminology, Vol. 3 (1999), 307-325.
    20. S. King and A. Tomkins, The poor in England, 1700-1850: an economy of makeshifts (2003).
    21. Sharon Howard, ‘Investigating Responses to Theft in Early Modern Wales: Communities, Thieves, and the Courts’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 19 (2004), 409-430.
    22. G. Kennedy, Diggers, levellers, and agrarian capitalism: Radical political thought in seventeenth century England (2008).
    23. C.J. Griffin, ‘Becoming private property: custom, law, and the geographies of ownership in 18th and 19th century England’, Environment and Planning, Vol. 42 (2010), 747-762.
    24. B. McDonagh, ‘Making and breaking property: Negotiating enclosure and common rights in sixteenth-century England’, History Workshop Journal, Vol. 76 (2013), 32-56.
    25. C.J. Griffin, Protest, Politics and Work in Rural England, 1700-1850 (2013).
    26. Munsche, P. B. Gentlemen and Poachers: The English Game Laws, 1671-1831. Cambridge, 1981.

  • Week 12 – Fear and Violence

    This week we’ll look at the ways both the state and the people used fear, violence, and threats of violence to negotiate their relationship with one another. We’ll consider popular forms of protest such as riot, and compare those with more traditional and more ‘civil’ forms of lobbying for changes in the law. This week is all about ‘agency’ of people seeking to sculpt their society.

    Slides

    Week 12 – Slides

    Seminar

    This week we will be reflecting on the module and the things we have learned. To that end I would like you to compile an A-Z of themes, issues, questions and key points covered in the module. In other words, for each letter of the alphabet, think of a theme etc. relevant to the Crime and Society module, for example, C might be for Class Struggle, I for Infanticide and S for Social Crime.

    As you know there is NO EXAM for this module. However, if you were to write a mock-exam for students like yourself, what over-arching questions could you ask that would tie together the major themes we have discussed? Consider topics that transcend the individual weeks. What are the big issues?

    You must bring your A-Z list and THREE potential mock-exam questions to the class and be prepared to discuss and explain each of your choices.

     

    Supplemental Reading List

    1. Keith Wrightson, ‘Infanticide in earlier seventeenth-century England’. Local Population Studies, Vol. 15 (1975), 10-22.
    2. Peter Clark, ‘Popular protest and disturbance in Kent 1558-1640’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol. 29, (1976), 365-82.
    3. C. Hammer, ‘Patterns of homicide in early modern Europe’. Past and Present, Vol. 78 (1978), 3-23.
    4. John Walter, ‘Grain riots and popular attitudes to the law: Maldon and the crisis of 1629’, in Brewer and Styles, An ungovernable people (1980).
    5. Ted Robert Gurr, ‘Historical trends in violent crime: a critical review of the evidence’. Crime and Justice, Vol. 3 (1981).
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