Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse

Description

This open access book is the culmination of many years of research on what happened to the bodies of executed criminals in the past. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it looks at the consequences of the 1752 Murder Act. These criminal bodies had a crucial role in the history of medicine, and the history of crime, and great symbolic resonance in literature and popular culture. Starting with a consideration of the criminal corpse in the medieval and early modern periods, chapters go on to review the histories of criminal justice, of medical history and of gibbeting under the Murder Act, and ends with some discussion of the afterlives of the corpse, in literature, folklore and in contemporary medical ethics. Using sophisticated insights from cultural history, archaeology, literature, philosophy and ethics as well as medical and crime history, this book is a uniquely interdisciplinary take on a fascinating historical phenomenon. Front Matter ....Pages i-x Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Introduction (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 3-27 The Power of the Criminal Corpse in the Medieval World (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 29-56 How Was the Power of the Criminal Corpse Harnessed in Early Modern England? (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 57-83 Front Matter ....Pages 85-85 Murder and the Law, 1752–1832 (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 87-114 Anatomisation and Dissection (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 115-150 Hanging in Chains (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 151-190 Front Matter ....Pages 191-191 Seeking the Physical Remains of the Criminal Corpse (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 193-212 Folk Beliefs and Popular Tales (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 213-237 Conclusions: Ethics, Bullet Points and Other Ways of Telling (Sarah Tarlow, Emma Battell Lowman)....Pages 239-268 Back Matter ....Pages 269-273