1st Edition
Evidence, Crime, and Forensics in the Early Modern Mediterranean
Introduction
Part I: Legal and Intellectual Foundations
Chapter 1
On the Inquisition in Spain
Gretchen Starr-LeBeau
Chapter 2
On the Roman Inquisition: Uncertainty and Discretion
Vincenzo Lavenia
Chapter 3
On Forensic Medical Evidence
Bradford Bouley
Part II: Urban Violence
Chapter 4
On Homicide in Bologna
Colin Rose
Chapter 5
On homicide, forensic practice, and forensic discourse in Madrid
Blanca Llanes Parra
Chapter 6
On Feuding in Venice
Andrew Vidali
Part III: Gendered Violence
Chapter 7
On Spousal Murders and Honor Killings in Spain
Edward Behrend-Martínez
Chapter 8
On Infanticide in Spain
Jodi Campbell
Chapter 9
On Miscarriage and Assault in Early Modern Rome
John Christopoulos
Part IV: Special Victims
Chapter 10
On Children in Spain
Lu Ann Homza
Chapter 11
On Sex Crimes in Italy
Celeste I. McNamara
Chapter 12
On the Blind and Disabled in Spain
Amanda L. Scott
Chapter 13
On the Undead
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia
Biography
Lu Ann Homza is a professor of history at William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Her books include Religious Authority in the Spanish Renaissance (2000), The Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1614: an Anthology of Sources (2006), Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates: Witch-Hunting in Navarre, 1608-1614 (2022), and The Child-Witches of Olague (2024).
Amanda L. Scott is an associate professor of history and women, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State University. She has published articles in, among others, The Journal of Social History, Renaissance Quarterly, The Sixteenth Century Journal, and Church History. Her previous publications include The Basque Seroras: Local Religion, Gender, and Power in Northern Iberia, 1550-1800 (2020).
‘A beautifully nuanced yet incisive overview of the cultural and social dimensions of law and courts in the early modern Mediterranean. The highly original chapters maintain an impressive balance between theory and practice and offer many valuable insights on the very nature of early modern law in the real world’ - Joel F. Harrington, Vanderbilt University.
‘Where ordinary folk crossed paths with the tribunals, both the men and women of early modern Spain and Italy and the men of law themselves developed canny ways of gathering, reading, and deploying evidence to deal with crimes and to navigate delinquency's great web of social and institutional concerns. Legal matters had their subtle epistemologies and rhetorics, both official and lay. In this book, skilled scholars explore those modes of legal knowing and disputing, engaging, inter alia, the abuse of children, the authority of disabled witnesses, the credibility of midwives as expert witnesses where miscarriages were provoked by violence, the growing authority of medical expertise, plus awkward peace-making between unequals, seduction and abandonment, infanticide, spousal murder, the Inquisition's evolving take on witchcraft, the elaborate procedures of Bologna's highest court, and, in an Eastern European excursion, villagers' panicky responses to their ungrateful un-dead. This lively collection, rich and varied, is an open-minded, handy tour of current work and an entry point to the many lines of investigation of an archival record as rich and varied as it is piquant and beguiling’ - Thomas V. Cohen, York University, Toronto (emeritus).
