Everyday Crime, Criminal Justice and Gender in Early Modern Bologna

Sanne Muurling, Ph.D. (2019), Leiden University, is a postdoctoral researcher at Radboud University. She has published on the social history of daily life, crime and deviance, gender, disease, poverty and welfare arrangements.

Acknowledgements

List of Figures and Tables



1 Introduction

 1 Historical Involvement of Women in Crime in Early Modern Europe

 2 Crime and Gender in an Early Modern Italian City

 3 Criminal Court Records as Sources for Social History

 4 Composition of This Book



2 Women’s Roles, Institutions, and Social Control

 1 Political and Demographic Developments

 2 Household Structures, Property Rights and Legal Capacity

 3 Women within the Urban Economy

 4 Interlocking Systems of Assistance and Control

 5 Conclusion: Agency within a Culture of Constraint



3 The Torroneand the Prosecution of Crimes

 1 The Tribunale del Torrone within Bologna’s Legal Landscape

 2 The Administration of Criminal Justice

 3 Criminal Procedures

 4 Italian Women’s Involvement in Recorded Crime

 5 The Character of Indicted Crime in Bologna

 6 Gender Dynamics in the Sentencing of Crimes

 7 Conclusion: Distinguishing Features of Women’s Prosecution



4 Denunciations and the Uses of Justice

 1 Women and the Uses of Justice

 2 Denunciations before the Torrone

 3 The Torrone as a Forum for Conflict Resolution

 4 The Urban Context of Women’s Litigation

 5 The Users of Justice

 6 Objectives of Litigation

 7 Conclusion: Criminal Litigation, Gender and Agency



5 Violence and the Politics of Everyday Life

 1 The Culture of Violence between Prosecution and Reconciliation

 2 Lethal Violence in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

 3 Insults and the Politics of Daily Life

 4 The Importance of Petty Physical Violence

 5 Severity and Weapons

 6 Violence and Social Relations

 7 The Gendered Geography of Violence

 8 Framing Men’s and Women’s Violence

 9 Conclusion: Everyday Violence and the Uses of Justice



6 Theft and Its Prosecution

 1 Legal Attitudes towards Theft

 2 Prosecution and Sentencing

 3 The Social Profile of Thieves and Economies of Makeshift

 4 Stolen Goods

 5 The Geographies of Theft

 6 The Distribution of Stolen Goods

 7 Conclusion: Judicial Paternalism and Women’s Roles in Thieving



7 Conclusion

 1 The Case of Bologna and Patterns of Female Crime

 2 The Impact of Institutionalisation, Judicial Paternalism and Peacemaking Practices

 3 Crime and Italian Women’s Agency

 4 Avenues for Future Research



Appendix: Information on Samples

Bibliography

Index