(Source: HUP)
Harvard University Press has
published a new book (translated from Italian) on Christianity’s role in legitimizing
the death penalty in Early Modern Europe.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A provocative analysis of how
Christianity helped legitimize the death penalty in early modern Europe, then
throughout the Christian world, by turning execution into a great cathartic
public ritual and the condemned into a Christ-like figure who accepts death to
save humanity.
The public execution of criminals
has been a common practice ever since ancient times. In this wide-ranging
investigation of the death penalty in Europe from the fourteenth to the
eighteenth century, noted Italian historian Adriano Prosperi identifies
a crucial period when legal concepts of vengeance and justice merged with
Christian beliefs in repentance and forgiveness.
Crime and Forgiveness begins
with late antiquity but comes into sharp focus in fourteenth-century Italy,
with the work of the Confraternities of Mercy, which offered Christian comfort
to the condemned and were for centuries responsible for burying the dead. Under
the brotherhoods’ influence, the ritual of public execution became
Christianized, and the doomed person became a symbol of the fallen human
condition. Because the time of death was known, this “ideal” sinner could be
comforted and prepared for the next life through confession and repentance. In
return, the community bearing witness to the execution offered forgiveness and
a Christian burial. No longer facing eternal condemnation, the criminal in turn
publicly forgave the executioner, and the death provided a moral lesson to the
community.
Over time, as the practice of
Christian comfort spread across Europe, it offered political authorities an
opportunity to legitimize the death penalty and encode into law the right to
kill and exact vengeance. But the contradictions created by Christianity’s
central role in executions did not dissipate, and squaring the emotions and
values surrounding state-sanctioned executions was not simple, then or now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adriano Prosperi is Professor
of Modern History, Emeritus, at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and
the author of more than fifteen books that address the intersection of law and
religion in early modern Europe.
More info here
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