John Rule (ed.) – Outside the Law: Studies in Crime and Order 1650-1850
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John Rule (ed.) – Outside the Law: Studies in Crime and Order 1650-1850
Exeter Papers in Economic History, Number 15 [University of Exeter 1982] buy used at abebooks.co.uk If you use this link to purchase this item breviary stuff will receive 5% commission The study of popular sexual attitudes and behaviour has moved far and fast in recent years, receiving momentum from historical demographers and histrorians of the family. At most times illicit sex was largely a matter for the church courts, although bastardy always posed problems for poor law administration. During the Interregnum statute law took over and placed drastic sanctions, including in some cases the death penalty, in the hands of its courts. Stephen Roberts examines the working of this remarkable act in Devon. He contributes both to our knowledge of how a statute was regarded and enforced in a particular region and to our knowledge of popular sexual attitudes and behaviour. Avril Leadley focusses on the market place and the people who interest her would probably be regarded as cheats rather than criminals. Properly she draws attention to the central role of the market place, to the problems of its regulation by borough authorities, to the difficulties of government in gaining acceptance for uniform weights and measures and of the sensitivity of a direct action inclined populace to malpractices. Roger Wells turns his attention to the problem of order. Crime and disturbance in teh eighteenth century took place in a society which lacked a large and professional enough police system for the imposing of prompt and effective control. Serious outbreaks of disorder needed the employment of the military either in its regular or in one of its irregular forms (yeoman, cavalry, volunteer regiments, etc). Concentrating on one of the most disturbed years, 1795, when disaffection at home, threat of invasion from abroad and high food prices seriously concerned the authorities. Dr Wells examines the problems of using the militia for crowd control when, suffering from the same strains as the population from which it was drawn, the loyalty of many of its number was in doubt. Bob Bushaway brings together his skills as professional historian and student of folklore and customs. This combination shows to advantage in his account of conflict between wood-taking habits of forest populations and a law increasingly reflecting the property concerns of the woodland owners. Here popular attitudes and developing notions of property rights clashed with as much import as in teh most dramatic confrontations characteristic of smuggling, poaching and wrecking. John Rule use sheep-stealing as a casestudy of rural crime c. 1740 to 1780. All capital offences create documentation but sheep-stealing was sufficiently commonplace to do so to a usable extent. The paper is exploratory: by looking at sheep-stealers it indicates something of the complexity and range of motivations which lay behind the perpetration of criminal acts in the countryside. Contents
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