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The Crime of Poison in the Middle Ages
Franck Collard, Deborah Nelson-Campbell
Book Code: C34699
ISBN: 0-313-34699-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-34699-6
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 9/30/2008
List Price: $49.95 (UK Sterling Price: £27.95)
Availability: Not yet published. (Estimated publication date, 9/30/2008)
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: This book examines the pereception of the crime of poisoning in the West in medieval times. The primary sources of information are chronicles that cover the entire medieval period and legal texts that are limited to the late medieval centuries. In order to portray the "culture" of murder by poisoning in the West, it was necessary to take into account Byzantine and Islamic documents as well as ancient texts such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians, both of which were widely known in the Middle Ages. This book covers the period beginning about 500 to 1500. This volume is concerned with the criminal actions that involve poison and not poison as such. Poisonous substances as such are described only when necessary for an understanding of a crime. What is important here is an examination of the ways that the alleged crime was perceived in contemporary minds. This crime avoids the use of violence, committed without a drawn weapon or bloodshed in a world in which wounds, swords, knives, and clubs represented aggression and in which the flow of blood determined the gravity of the crime. Necessarily involving preparation and secrecy, it was often perpetrated treacherously during a meal, in a universe that was united by the companionship of a meal and the sociability of drinking. The horror associated with poisoning results from the treachery of those close to the victim and a sudden death that prevents a final confession of sins.
Table of Contents:
  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • Chapter I An Elusive Crime?
  • The Crime as Event: The Emergence of the Crime in Narrative
  • The Crime and Its Description: Its Existence in the Judicial Code
  • The Difficulty in Quantifying Cases of Poisoning
  • Chapter II A Unique Weapon
  • The Poison Market
  • Products that Were Used and the Instructions
  • A Invincible Weapon? How to Prevent and to Recover from Poisoning
  • Chapter III The Sociology of Poisoning
  • Profiles of the Victims of Poisoning
  • The Faces of the Poisoners
  • The Crime of Poison in the World of Relationships
  • Chapter IV Horrendum scelus. An Abominable Crime
  • A Crime Described in Superlatives
  • The Reasons for the Abomination: How to Kill
  • The Reasons for the Abomination: Objectives and Effects of Poisoning
  • Chapter V Pursuit and Punishment
  • Theoretical Bases and Effective Practice
  • The Poisoner on Trial
  • Sentences and Sanctions
  • Chapter VI Beyond Crime: Issues and Uses of Poison
  • Poisonous Aggression, Heroism and Sainthood
  • The Accusation of Poisoning and Social Regulation
  • The Use of Poison: A Theme of Propaganda
  • Conclusion
  • Major Sources
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Index of Major Historical Figures
LC Card Number: 2008022062
LCC Class: HV6552
Dewey Class: 364
PDF Catalogs:
Greenwood History Spring 2008.pdf
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