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Murder in Early Modern England

Module description

This module examines murder in early modern England. By focusing on this single crime – how it was treated in law in its various dimensions (infanticide, husband/wife murder, self-murder, judicial murder etc.) and how these were represented in popular culture – this module explores in depth the significance of this crime in the early modern world. This module will introduce you to the analysis of original sources – and their uses and limitations in the understanding of the past. As such it does not seek to present a fully comprehensive history of crime, nor can it cover all the many sources that might be looked at for its study. Instead, the module looks at a representative sample of different types of source ranging from published printed accounts of trials, newspaper reports, plays, pamphlets and ballads to examine this most serious of crimes in detail. No prior knowledge or experience is required for this module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to:

• Introduce you to the rich range of sources available that allows historians to analyse the crime of murder in its various manifestations in early modern England
• Develop skills in source analysis and research that will provide a foundation for future historical work, particularly in the histories of crime, punishment, and gender

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and assess the nature of early modern thinking about, attitudes towards and prosecution of murder
• 2. Work critically with a range of written and visual sources for the history of murder in the early modern world

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Identify the problems of using historical sources, e.g. utility, limitations, etc, and compare the validity of different types of sources
• 4. Present historical arguments and answer questions orally

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Conduct independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 7. Write to a tight word-limit

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that following an introductory session, a separate source will be analysed in each of the remaining 10 weeks. Sources will be diverse including, for example, newspaper reports, legal texts and works of medical jurisprudence, court records, literary and popular representations e.g. in plays, ballads, chapbooks and pamphlets. The first seminar will explain the basic outlines of the subject, providing a framework into which students can then fit the sources they will be studying, as well as explaining the format that the remaining classes will take, in particular, that students will be divided into groups. In subsequent weeks, the class will have been told, in advance, to prepare an answer in 400-500 words to a question relating to one of the set texts. In the class, a group of students will present a selection of answers to the question in turn. The rest of the students will then subdivide into their own groups to comment on the presentation and to ask questions. These questions will then be answered and discussion allowed to develop on key points. In the light of the discussion and the tutor's comments, the students will then self-assess their own work according to a pro-forma, which will then be collected by the tutor for moderation. Finally, the tutor will outline the work to be done for the following week's seminar.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic reading:

• Baker, J. H., An Introduction to English Legal History (4^th ed., London, 2002)
• Beattie, J M., Policing and punishment in London 1660-1750: urban crime and the limits of terror (Oxford, 2001)
• Clark, Sandra, Women and Crime in the Street Literature of Early Modern England, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)
• Cockburn, J S., ‘Patterns of violence in English society: homicide in Kent 1560-1985’ Past and Present, 130 (1991)
• Devereaux & P. Griffiths (eds), Penal practice and culture, 1500-1900: punishing the English (Palgrave, 2004)
• Dolan, F E., ‘Home-rebels and house-traitors: murderous wives in early modern England’, Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, 4 (1992)
• Gaskill, Malcolm, ‘Reporting murder: fiction in the archives in early modern England’, Social History, 23 (1998)
• Gatrell, V A C, The hanging tree: execution and the English people, 1770-1868 (Oxford, 1994)
• Jackson, Mark, New-born child murder: women, illegitimacy and the courts in eighteenth-century England (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 1996)
• MacDonald, Michael and Terence R. Murphy, Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990)
• Rosenberg, A., ‘The Sarah Stout Murder Case: An Early Example of the Doctor as an Expert Witness’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 12:1 (1957), pp. 61-70
• Saxton, K. S., Narratives of women and murder in England, 1680-1760: deadly plots (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009)
• Sharpe, J A., ‘Domestic homicide in early modern England’, Historical Journal, 24 (1981)
• Sharpe, J. A., Judicial punishment in England (London, 1990)
• Sharpe, J. A., Crime in Early Modern England 1550-1750 (London, 1984)
• Staub, Susan C., Nature's cruel stepdames: murderous women in the street literature of seventeenth century England, (Pittsburgh, Penn.: Duquesne University Press, 2005)
• Sugg, Richard, Murder after Death: Literature and Anatomy in Early Modern England (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2007) 

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11915
• Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/)
• English Broadside Ballad Archive (http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/)
• Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads (http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/ballads.htm)
• Early Modern  Books Online (EEBO -through library catalogue)
• Burney Collection of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Newspapers Online (through library catalogue)

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Edited collections of calendar of assizes.

Key words search

Murder; homicide; unlawful killing; suicide; infanticide; execution.