Punishing the dead?: Suicide, Lordship, and Community in Britain, 1500-1830

Table of Contents......Page 8
The Argument......Page 18
Historiography: English Suicide, French Inf luences, and the Politics of Modern Historians......Page 24
Social-Science Approaches to Suicide......Page 30
Investigating Sudden Death in the Past: the Institutional Contrasts between Scotland and England......Page 33
British History and the Geographical Perspective of the Study......Page 36
Defining and Describing Self-Murder in the Past......Page 39
PART 1: PUNISHING THE DEAD......Page 42
Introduction: Penalties Against Suicide in Britain and on the Continent......Page 44
1.1 Sources and Approaches: Forfeiting and Granting the Suicide’s Goods in Scotland......Page 47
1.2 Scots Law and Suicide: A Distinctive Path......Page 53
1.3 The Workings of Forfeiture: Who was Forfeited, What was Lost, and Who Gained?......Page 61
1.4 Donations of Forfeitures: Gifts, Service, and the Value of Generosity in Social and Political Life......Page 70
1.5 Politics and the Law: the Rise and Fall of Forfeiture, c.1550–1650......Page 80
1.6 The Political Geography of Suicide: Correcting Lordship in Town and Country......Page 88
1.7 Informal Remedies and the Interventions of Lords......Page 94
1.8 Denying Suicide: the Responses of Some Survivors......Page 96
1.9 How Violent was Scottish Suicide? Illegitimate Death and the Legitimacy of Forfeiture......Page 100
1.10 Conclusion: Enforcing Authority in an Age of Political and Social Change......Page 105
2.1 Dealing with Suicide: Lords and People......Page 112
2.2 Forfeiture, Law, and Conscience: Lordship and Community in an Age of Legal Change, c.1530–1700......Page 117
2.3 The Royal Almoner as an Enforcer of Christian Charity......Page 130
2.4 Through a Glass Darkly: the Financial Side of Forfeiture......Page 137
2.5 The Almoner’s Accommodations: Arbitration, Mediation, and Delegation in the Affairs of Suicides......Page 141
2.6 Almoner and People Before the Law: Survivors in the Central Courts......Page 149
2.7 Concealing and Revealing Suicide: the Strengths and Limitations of Early Modern Government and Local Community......Page 152
2.8 Competing Lordship: the Rights of Almoners and Other Franchisees......Page 158
2.9 Competing Franchises, Contesting Lordship......Page 164
2.10 Urban Corporations as Collective Lords......Page 167
2.11 Territorial Lords and the Process of Forfeiture......Page 172
2.12 Felo de se and Non Compos Mentis Verdicts: a Conundrum Resolved......Page 192
2.13 Conclusion: Charity, Law, and Lordship in a Changing Society......Page 198
3.1 Introduction: Desecration and Denial in the Burial of Suicides......Page 206
3.2 Comment on the Prevalence of Profane Burial in England from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century......Page 207
3.3 Burial and the Law in England: Constraints on Clergy and People......Page 212
3.4 English Burial Practices: Dealing Selectively with the Dangerous Dead......Page 216
3.5 The Micro-Politics of English Burial: Negotiating the Treatment of Murderers of Themselves......Page 221
3.6 The Differences Between Suicide Burials in England and Scotland......Page 228
3.7 Religious Ritual and Burial: the Simplicity of Scottish Calvinism......Page 229
3.8 Movement and Location: the Mobile Lives of Scottish Corpses......Page 232
3.9 The Politics of Burial: Competing Values in the Treatment of Scottish Suicides......Page 235
3.10 Conclusion: the Political Lives of Dead Bodies......Page 239
4.1 The Workings of Justice: Inventiveness in Punishments and the Creation of Culprits in Early Modern Europe......Page 243
4.2 Official Sanctions Against the Corpses of Suicides: Shaming the Dead in Scotland, c.1560–1700......Page 246
4.3 Explaining Official Punishments in Jacobean and Later Scotland......Page 252
4.4 Beyond Courts and Officials: Popular Desecrations of Suicides’ Bodies in Scotland, c.1600–1820......Page 257
4.5 Avoiding Sanctions: the Suicide of Convicts and New Ideas of the Body in Eighteenth-Century Scotland......Page 263
4.6 Corporal Punishment in England: the Peculiarities of the North......Page 268
4.7 Conclusion: Legal Change, Law Enforcement, and the Limitation of Latitude in Punishment......Page 278
5.1 Why Punish the Dead?......Page 285
5.2 Attempted Suicide and the Purposes of Intervention......Page 288
PART 2: UNDERSTANDING THE DEAD......Page 300
6.1 Introduction: a French Model, and Attitudes Towards British Suicide......Page 302
6.2 The Devil, the Law, and Suicide......Page 305
6.3 The Strategic Value of Suicide as a Political and Religious Exemplar in Scotland......Page 318
6.4 Suicide, Hope, and Despair: the Spiritual Experience of Scottish Calvinists......Page 322
6.5 Suicide and Religion in the Enlightenment......Page 330
6.6 Conclusion: Hybrid Understandings in a Religious Age......Page 340
7.1 Introduction: Newspapers in Northern Britain, c.1700–1830......Page 342
7.2 Reporting Suicide in the English Press: Moral Messages in the Enlightenment......Page 346
7.3 Reporting Suicide in the Scottish Press: the English Pattern Writ Small......Page 365
7.4 Conclusion: Public Opinion and the Boundaries of the Moral Community......Page 374
Conclusion: National, Regional, and Local Histories......Page 379
Coda: When did Suicide Become Acceptable?......Page 388
Select Bibliography......Page 394
B......Page 406
C......Page 407
E......Page 408
H......Page 409
L......Page 410
N......Page 411
R......Page 412
S......Page 413
Z......Page 414