This volume, first published in 1977, brings together eleven studies of crime and the administration of the criminal law in England during the early modern period. They represent a variety of approaches – legal, historical and sociological – to the study of historical crime. The initial essay in this study, which is written from a legal standpoint, is the first coordinated account of the structure of criminal law administration in this formative period. It is followed by investigations into the nature and incidence of crime, court appearance and punishment, separate studies of witchcraft, infanticide and poaching, and an account of conditions in eighteenth-century Newgate. This book will be of particular interest to students of criminology and history.
Notes on Contributors; List of Abbreviations; Preface; Introduction: Crime and the Historian; 1. Criminal Courts and Procedure at Common Law 1550-1800 2. The Nature and Incidence of Crime in England 1559-1625: A Preliminary Survey 3. Witchcraft in Tudor and Stewart Essex 4. Crime and Delinquency in an Essex Parish 1600-1640 5. Communities and Courts: Law and Disorder in Early-Seventeenth-Century Wiltshire 6. Quarter Sessions Appearances and their Background: A Seventeenth-Century Regional Study 7. Crime and the Courts in Surrey 1736-1753 8. Infanticide in the Eighteenth Century 9. The Game Laws in Wiltshire 1750-1800 10. Finding Solace in Eighteenth-Century Newgate 11. The Ordinary of Newgate and His Account; Crime and Criminal Justice: A Critical Bibliography; Notes; Index
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