Overview

Frankfurt am Main, in common with other imperial German cities, enjoyed a large degree of legal autonomy during the early modern period, and produced a unique and rich body of criminal archives. In particular, Frankfurt’s Strafenbuch, which records all criminal sentences between 1562 and 1696, provides a fascinating insight into contemporary penal trends. Drawing on this and other rich resources, Dr. Boes reveals shifting and fluid attitudes towards crime and punishment and how these were conditioned by issues of gender, class, and social standing within the city’s establishment. She attributes a significant role in this process to the steady proliferation of municipal advocates, jurists trained in Roman Law, who wielded growing legal and penal prerogatives. Over the course of the book, it is demonstrated how the courts took an increasingly hard line with select groups of people accused of criminal behavior, and the open manner with which advocates exercised cultural, religious, racial, gender, and sexual-orientation repressions. Parallel with this, however, is identified a trend of marked leniency towards soldiers who enjoyed an increasingly privileged place within the judicial system. In light of this discrepancy between the treatment of civilians and soldiers, the advocates’ actions highlight the emergence and spread of a distinct military judicial culture and Frankfurt’s city council’s contribution to the quasi-militarization of a civilian court. By highlighting the polarized and changing ways the courts dealt with civilian and military criminals, a fuller picture is presented not just of Frankfurt’s sentencing and penal practices, but of broader attitudes within early modern Germany to issues of social position and cultural identity.

Full Product Details

Author:   Maria R. Boes
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781138379756

ISBN 10:   1138379751
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   06 June 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contents: Preface; Part I The City’s Profile: Socio-economic and religious background; Legal/judicial setting. Part II Criminal Detection Methods: Public appearance and criminal judicial practices in early modern Germany. Part III Cultural and Religious/Racial Impediments: On cultural crossroads: gypsies on trial; Targeted twice: Jews as criminal and judicial victims; Enough is enough: two Jewish resistance trials. Part IV Gender Issues: Women and the penal system in Frankfurt am Main, 1562-1696; Women bonding: collaborative infanticide; Choosing death over shame: unwed mothers and infanticide. Part V Sexual Behavior: On trial for sodomy in early modern Germany. Part VI Military Ascendency: Judicial treatments of soldiers for killings unrelated to the battle field. Part VII Desperate Acts: Escapes from judgment: self-inflicted deaths of criminal suspects; Conclusion; Index.

Reviews

'... I strongly recommend this book to readers interested in mechanisms of social discipline and criminal prosecution, religious persecution and toleration, and gender and sexuality in early modern Germany. Boes’s careful archival research brings to life complicated and intimate stories from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Frankfurt that speak to each of these topics in important ways.' Renaissance Quarterly '... Boes's Crime and Punishment provides many interesting case studies and good insight into early modern Germany's criminal practices related to minorities and marginalized social groups.' Sixteenth Century Journal 'The book's main strength is in its detailed accounts of individual cases, which offer potential insights into both social history and legal thinking. Her cases on Gypsies offer interesting evidence on their uses of language and their interactions with the Christian community.' German History

'... I strongly recommend this book to readers interested in mechanisms of social discipline and criminal prosecution, religious persecution and toleration, and gender and sexuality in early modern Germany. Boes's careful archival research brings to life complicated and intimate stories from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Frankfurt that speak to each of these topics in important ways.' Renaissance Quarterly '... Boes's Crime and Punishment provides many interesting case studies and good insight into early modern Germany's criminal practices related to minorities and marginalized social groups.' Sixteenth Century Journal 'The book's main strength is in its detailed accounts of individual cases, which offer potential insights into both social history and legal thinking. Her cases on Gypsies offer interesting evidence on their uses of language and their interactions with the Christian community.' German History

Author Information

Dr. Maria R. Boes is Professor Emerita of West Chester University, Pennsylvania. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on Early Modern Germany.

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