The Crossroads of Justice: Law and Culture in Late Medieval FranceThe book is an analysis of the cultural and social functions of law, legal processes and legal rituals in late medieval Northern France. It is centered around a time and a place in which European law underwent some major transformations, from a plethora of local oral customs to a fairly coherent system of national, written customary law. In this process, law and legal procedures came to reflect a great variety of cultural traditions, ranging from popular perceptions of animals and the human body to learned ideas of Roman jurisprudence. Drawing upon wide-ranging sources: judicial, legal, literary and historical, Cohen analyzes the various influences upon the shaping of law as a cultural manifestation and its application as an actual system of justice. |
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Contents
The Reality of Medieval Law and Its Myths | 15 |
The Reality of Late Medieval French Law and Its Myths | 27 |
RITUALS | 54 |
Folklore and Symbolic Functions in Medieval Legal Rituals | 74 |
Women and Jews | 85 |
The Dead | 134 |
THE CONTEXT OF AUTHORITY | 146 |
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accepted according animals appeared associated authority belief body carried century ceremony Christian claimed concerning condemned contemporary context court crime criminals cultural custom customary law dead death droit early ecclesiastical elements entire evidence execution existence expression fact folklore force formal formulae fourteenth France French function gallows hands hanging human idea important Italy Jean Jews judges judicial jurisdiction jurists justice king late medieval later lawyers learned legal rituals liminal literature living matter means merely middle ages nature oath oral original pain Paris Parlement perceptions person physical popular position possessed practice precedent present preserve procedure proof punishment punitive reality reason record religious rites role Roman royal rules Saint secular sentence social society soul sources specific suffering symbolic thirteenth tion tradition trials universal vols women writing written
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Bibliographic information
| Title | The Crossroads of Justice: Law and Culture in Late Medieval France Volume 36 of Brill's studies in intellectual history, v. 36 |
| Author | Esther Cohen |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | BRILL, 1993 |
| ISBN | 9004095691, 9789004095694 |
| Length | 231 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |