Felony and the Guilty Mind in Medieval England

Legal History

Felony and the Guilty Mind in Medieval England

By Elizabeth Papp Kamali
Cambridge University Press August 2019

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781108498791
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication
August 2019
Format
Hardback
Jurisdiction
U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Details

This book explores the role of mens rea, broadly defined as a factor in jury assessments of guilt and innocence from the early thirteenth through the fourteenth century - the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury. Drawing upon evidence from the plea rolls, but also relying heavily upon non-legal textual sources such as popular literature and guides for confessors, Elizabeth Papp Kamali argues that issues of mind were central to jurors' determinations of whether a particular defendant should be convicted, pardoned, or acquitted outright. Demonstrating that the word 'felony' itself connoted a guilty state of mind, she explores the interplay between social conceptions of guilt and innocence and jury behavior. Furthermore, she reveals a medieval understanding of felony that involved, in its paradigmatic form, three essential elements: an act that was reasoned, was willed in a way not constrained by necessity, and was evil or wicked in its essence.

Table of Contents

List of figures
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
Introduction
The history of Mens Rea
Methodology
The trial jury and its predecessors: Anglo-Saxon and Angevin Antecedents
A brief chapter summary
The essentials of medieval English felony procedure
Part I. Felonia Felonice Facta: Felony and Intentionality:
1. The meaning of felony
1.1 Felonia Felonice Facta and the question of non-felonious felonies
1.2 The etymology of felony
2. Felony in the archives
2.1 Words of felony in law and literature
2.2 Accomplice liability and the nexus between actus reus and mens rea
2.3. A felonious state of mind
2.4 Conclusion to Part I
Part II. THe Deuylys Doghtyr of Helle Fyre: Felony and Emotion:
3. The language of anger
3.1 An elite emotional episode: the Warenne-Zouche Incident
3.2 The history of law and emotion
3.3 The language of anger
3.4 Anger and the common law: an overview
3.5 Passion in the plea rolls
3.6 Melancholic felony in Gower's Tale of Canace and Machaire
4. Cultural understandings of anger
4.1 Anger and the judgment day
4.2 Positive manifestations of the passion
4.3 Anger in the confessional
4.4. Slights, affronts, and provocations
4.5 Anger, provocation, and the medieval English jury
4.6 Conclusion to Part II
Part III. Handlyng Synne: Guilt and Innocence:
5. Confession and circumstantial inquiry
5.1 Confessions of a horse thief
5.2 A confessing society
5.3 Inquiry into the circumstances
5.4 The role of confession in felony adjudication
6. Guilt assessment in medieval England
6.1 Handlyng Synne and crime
6.2 Sins of thought, speech, deed
6.3 Rankings of sins and crimes
6.4 Conclusion to Part III
Part IV. Dies Irae: Judge and Jury:
7. Tales of judging
7.1 The perils and prosaic nature of judging
7.2 Pontius Pilate and deference to jury verdicts
7.3 The misjudging of Christ and its resonance
8. The mind and comportment of judge and jury
8.1 Erkenwald and the Pagan judge
8.2 Harsh justice tempered by mercy
8.3 The proper comportment of those who judge
8.4 Judicial states of mind
8.5 Conclusion to Part IV
Conclusion
Looking back
Looking forward
Legal literacy and the medieval English jury
Bibliography
Index.
HKD 1,462.76 −3%
HKD 1,508.00

Inclusive of HK delivery

Ready to ship
Delivery Time: around 4-5 weeks
Extra 10 working days if shipping address outside Hong Kong
  • Free HK shipping over HK$1,000
  • International shipping to 35+ countries
Order Form
Save

Recommended

You may also be interested in these books:

More titles from Legal History

View all
In the Shadow of the Great Charter: Common Law Constitutionalism and the Magna Carta
University Press of Kansas

In the Shadow of the Great Charter: Common Law Constitutionalism and the Magna Carta

Robert M Pallitto
HKD 531.00
The Reformation of the Constitution: Law, Culture and Conflict in Jacobean England
Hart Publishing

The Reformation of the Constitution: Law, Culture and Conflict in Jacobean England

Ian Ward
HKD 1,134.90
Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery from 1660 to 1673
Arizona Center for Medieval Renaissance Studies

Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery from 1660 to 1673

W.H. Bryson
HKD 1,330.00
Equity in Early Modern Legal Scholarship
Brill Nijhoff

Equity in Early Modern Legal Scholarship

Lorenzo Maniscalco
HKD 1,848.00
Chinese Law: Knowledge, Practice and Transformation, 1530s to 1950s
Brill Academic Publishers

Chinese Law: Knowledge, Practice and Transformation, 1530s to 1950s

Li Chen
HKD 558.60
Lawyers’ Empire: Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780-1950
UBC Press

Lawyers’ Empire: Legal Professions and Cultural Authority, 1780-1950

W. Wesley Pue
HKD 891.10