Crime in Seventeenth-Century England
A County Study

The history of crime is an exciting field, forming one aspect of a much wider increase in interest in social history as a whole.

J. A. Sharpe (Author)

9780521089470, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 November 2008

300 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

The history of crime is an exciting field, forming one aspect of a much wider increase in interest in social history as a whole. This book, based on a detailed study of court records in Essex between 1620 and 1680 combines a detailed study of fluctuations in crime and punishment in a seventeenth-century English county with an analysis of the social processes which lay behind prosecution. In so doing, it marks a major contribution to the field. Dr Sharpe's objective is to break away from older treatments of crime in the period, which have depended too much on an uncritical use of literary sources, and to offer a contrast to the legal historian's perspective on the subject. He studies the reality of crime as it was tried at the courts, and as it was experienced by both criminals and victims.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Problems, sources and methods
2. Essex: a county and its government
Part II. The face of disorder
3. The regulation of economic life
4. Drink offences
5. Sexual morality and sexual offences
6. Riot and popular disturbances
Part III. Offences against property and the person: 7. Property offences
8. Crimes of violence
Part IV. General themes and wider issues: 9. Punishment
10. Crime and the local community
11. Overall patterns of crime in Essex, 1620–80
12. Concluding observations.

Subject Areas: Crime & criminology [JKV], Social & cultural history [HBTB]