2020-12-19
48 分钟This episode, we continue our Medieval True Crime series with a trip to late 13th-century Bedfordshire as represented in its Coroner's Rolls, as well as hear some inadvertently lyrical legalese from early 14th-century Northampton. Today's Text: Gross, Charles, editor. Select Cases from the Coroners' Rolls, A.D. 1265-1413, with a Brief Account of the History of the Office of Coroner. Bernard Quarithc, 1896. Google Books. References: Hanawalt, Barbara A. "Violent Death in Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century England." Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 18, no. 3, July 1976, pp. 297-320. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/178340. Warrin, Frank L. “Hue and Cry.” The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 9, no. 1, 1933, pp. 26–37. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26433779.
This is medieval death trip for Friday, December 18, 2020.
Episode 85 medieval true crime two concerning violent crime in the coroner's roles.
Hello, and welcome to medieval death trip, the show where we explore the wit and weirdness of medieval texts.
I'm your host, Patrick Lane.
Last episode, we had an account of violent crime presented through the framework of a miracle tale.
Today we're going to hear some items from medieval english coroner's roles.
Our hagiographical narrative, and are judicial ones, have more in common than you might suppose.
The miraculous intervention of King Henry to enable the victim to accuse his attackers was, after all, being presented as part of a collection of evidence to make the case to ecclesiastical authorities that Henry merited canonization as a saint.
That miracle collection is as much a forensic document as the coroner's records, accounting for mysterious or violent deaths or injuries.
In fact, I forgot last episode to include what the findings were of the investigators who collected this story of William Edwards, vicar of Hollington, and how he was attacked by some of his own parishioners.
A marginal note in the manuscript indicates that this miracle was determined to have been proved and lists three witnesses prepared to attest to it, including William Edwards himself.
Indeed, if anything, the miracle tale might feel closer to courtroom testimony than the actual court documents we'll hear today, in that it is obviously trying to make a case and deploys rhetorical tools to advance it.
The coroner's roles aren't really meant to level charges or even advance a prosecution.
They are relatively bare documentation of established facts about an event and who is prepared to stand witness to it.
I almost said testify there.
But even that is conjuring a more involved and modern courtroom image than fits the medieval reality.
The coroner's roles really are closer to the modern police blotter.
They're not really trying to make a case.
They're just meant to record the circumstances which have led to a charge being brought to the court or not brought, as the case may be.
Another similarity between the rolls and the blotter is etymological in that they both get their name from their physical form.