Description:
The willingness to betray one's country, one's people, one's family--to commit treason and foreswear loyalty to one entity by giving it to another--is a difficult concept for many people to comprehend. Yet, societies have grappled with treason for centuries; the motivations, implications, and consequences are rarely clear cut and are often subjective. Set against the framework of modern political concerns, Treason: Medieval and Early Modern Adultery, Betrayal, and Shame considers the various forms of treachery in a variety of sources, including literature, historical chronicles, and material culture creating a complex portrait of the development of this high crime. Larissa Tracy artfully brings together younger critics as well as seasoned scholars in a compelling and topical conversation on treason.
Contributors are Frank Battaglia, Dianne Berg, Tina Marie Boyer, Albrecht Classen, Sam Claussen, Freddy C. Domínguez, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Ana Grinberg, Iain A. MacInnes, Inna Matyushina, Sally Shockro, Susan Small, Peter Sposato, Sarah J. Sprouse, Daniel Thomas, and Larissa Tracy.
Review Quotes: 'Tracy's volume offers a great deal to those interested in the workings of treason (and loyalty) in the medieval and early modern periods, not least for anyone interested in German and French literature and history, as well as in religious forms. I have left discussion of other fine chapters out due to constraints of space, but let those mentioned here recommend the others, as well. Tracy is right that an understanding of the history of treason is useful to thinking about the uses and abuses of accusations of treason today. The chapters assembled in this collection testify to the enduring struggle with how treason was defined, punished, used in the interest of the state, and sometimes deployed as a legitimate form of rebellion against the tyrant.'
Cristina León Alfar, in Journal of British Studies 59.4, October 2020.