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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 1301: Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England, II: Historical Considerations

Wednesday 14 July 2010, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Jay Paul Gates, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
Moderator/Chair:Jay Paul Gates, Department of English, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
Paper 1301-a'Pour encourager les autres': Mutilation and Display in II Æthelstan
(Language: English)
Dan O'Gorman, Department of History, Loyola University Chicago
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Law
Paper 1301-bVarious Bases of Legitimation for the Increment of Penalty and Physical Punishment in Anglo-Saxon Legislation
(Language: English)
Daniela Fruscione, Institut für Rechtsgeschichte, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Law
Paper 1301-cEvading Corporal Punishment: Spiritual Dangers and Earthly Consequences
(Language: English)
Nicole Marafioti, Department of History, Trinity University, Texas
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Old English
Abstract

Treatments of capital and corporal punishment appear in various contexts during the Anglo-Saxon period. In addition to the Old English law codes that prescribe death and mutilation for criminal offenders, physical penalties figure prominently in literary texts, theological writings,
works of art, and the archaeology of the Anglo-Saxon landscape. Current research in each of these areas has done much to illuminate the judicial, practical and ethical considerations that influenced the sentencing of offenders. Our session on this subject at the 2009 Congress was extremely successful, and we expect that this would be as well. We have assembled a diverse panel of interdisciplinary papers on the role of execution, mutilation, and bodily punishments in Anglo-Saxon England.