Abstract
This article presents the results of a psychiatric and church-historical analysis of the substantial court records from 21 cases of female child murderers in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway. We investigated, first, the appearance of mental aspects in the cases and if they allowed for a retrospective clinical hypothesis regarding the mental state of the offender. Second, traces of theological or religious elements and third, trends or developments in the cases from 1697–1758 were considered. After an introduction to the legal framework, we present six cases with mental aspects, comprising existential death wish, depression, acute stress disorder, polymorphic psychosis, psychotic state and personality disorder to illustrate findings regarding the murderers’ mental states. Religious elements and developments proved hard to find. The results of the analysis point to social and mental rather than religious causative factors for the murders. To some degree they resemble present-day “suicide by cop” or homicides committed by mentally ill persons. This calls for a modification of the theory of so-called suicide murders and a religious or particularly Lutheran component in this regard. The in-depth analysis indicates that court procedures were perfectly commonsense and included mental aspects but seldom religion – and no magic.
Highlights
This article presents the results of a psychiatric and church-historical analysis of the substantial court records from 21 cases of female child murderers in eighteenth-century Denmark-Norway
We posed three questions to the selected cases: (1) Did mental aspects appear in the cases, allowing for a retrospective clinical hypothesis about the mental state of the offenders? (2) Did theological or religious concepts and arguments appear as a motivation or influence in the court proceedings? (3) Could trends concerning 1 or 2 be identified over the span of the eighteenth century?
We investigated the appearance of mental aspects in the cases and the possibility of a retrospective clinical hypothesis about the offenders
Summary
A number of studies on female child murderers in the eighteenth century have already been performed. These murders do not appear to be caused by religious culture in the eighteenth century, nor by a pietistic Lutheran wish for salvation. It could be argued that the murders were the result of an inadequate understanding of mental illness in the eighteenth century.’ 22 it may be fruitful to examine psychiatric elements of the murders
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: 1700-tal: Nordic Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
