Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity

This book argues that late antiquity introduced a legal form of punitive imprisonment, complicating the concept of the 'birth of the prison'.

Julia Hillner (Author)

9781009296410, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 September 2022

442 pages, 3 maps 4 tables
22.9 x 15.1 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

'… Julia Hillner's inviting style allows the reader to come to her own conclusions with guided direction. Even if one does not always agree with some of the arguments put forth, all the evidence is provided for you, which is an invaluable feature of this book. Finally, due to the vast amount of topics discussed by the author, readers will inevitably be inspired to pick up new threads for further discovery. This book is a wonderful contribution to the field and comes highly recommended.' Jennifer Barry, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

This book traces the long-term genesis of the sixth-century Roman legal penalty of forced monastic penance. The late antique evidence on this penal institution runs counter to a scholarly consensus that Roman legal principle did not acknowledge the use of corrective punitive confinement. Dr Hillner argues that forced monastic penance was a product of a late Roman penal landscape that was more complex than previous models of Roman punishment have allowed. She focuses on invigoration of classical normative discourses around punishment as education through Christian concepts of penance, on social uses of corrective confinement that can be found in a vast range of public and private scenarios and spaces, as well as on a literary Christian tradition that gave the experience of punitive imprisonment a new meaning. The book makes an important contribution to recent debates about the interplay between penal strategies and penal practices in the late Roman world.

Introduction
Part I. Punishment, Reform and Penance: 1. Philosophical and domestic foundations
2. Punishment and reform in early imperial legal thought
3. Christian principles of punishment
4. Punishment, reform and penance in late Roman law
Conclusions
Part II. Prison and Punishment: 5. The public prison in late antiquity
6. Private power and punitive confinement
7. Exile and confinement
8. Exile, prison and the Christian imagination
Conclusions
Part III. Prison and Penance: 9. Monastic confinement and ecclesiastical justice
10. Monastic confinement and imperial justice
Conclusions
Appendix I. Places of forced residence
Appendix II. Places of exiles' confinement
Appendix III. Places of monastic confinement.

Subject Areas: Penology & punishment [JKVP], The Early Church [HRCC1], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]