Description:
How did medieval society deal with private justice, with grudges, and with violent emotions? This ground-breaking reader collects for the first time a number of unpublished or difficult-to-find texts that address violence and emotion in the Middle Ages.
Brief description: Daniel Lord Smail is Professor of History at Harvard University. He is the co-editor with Thelma Fenster of Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe (Cornell University Press, 2003), The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264-1423 (Cornell University Press, 2003), and Imaginary Cartographies: Possession and Identity in Late Medieval Marseille (Cornell University Press, 1999).
Review Quotes: The editors are to be applauded for their outstanding efforts to make so many relevant texts available. Overall, the entire period of the Middle Ages is well covered, and we can easily grasp the long tradition on vengeance going back to the Old Testament. This proves to be a very useful textbook that will allow new approaches in university seminars.--Mediaevistik