Secular Courts Research Articles

Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation (review)

Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation. By Magda Teter. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2011. Pp. x, 331. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-674-05297-0.) Politically powerful noblemen in Reformation Poland, attempting to protect Protestants (and enhance their own power), advanced measures limiting the authority of the Catholic Church. This culminated in the 1 560s when the Polish parliament (Sejm) decided that secular authorities would no longer enforce verdicts declared by ecclesiastical courts. Ironically, with the ecclesiastical courts' loss of power, secular courts gradually began to adjudicate religious and moral matters. Acts that once were classified as sins and might have been punished with symbolic acts of penance or excommunication were now criminalized. As Magda Teter notes, Crimes against religion, such as adultery, blasphemy and sacrilege, almost surely sent the convicts quickly to the stake, while social and sexual crimes, such as adultery, bigamy, abortion and infanticide, became punishable by diverse forms of death. . (p. 7). In effect, local magistrate courts became the adjudicators of religious and moral behavior and the arbiters of the sacred. As the forces of the Counter-Reformation gained momentum in Poland and the Protestant and Catholic Churches vied for the status of ecclesia Dei (the Church of God), local authorities tended to side with the Catholics. With erudition and much precise detail (although with murky rhetorical strategy), Teter traces the highlights of the Protestant-Catholic competition, focusing especially on the issue of transubstantiation and the divine nature of the Eucharist. She shows how both legends and trials of cases of desecration of the host were part of larger project to silence dissent, affirm Catholic dogma, and re-establish the Catholic Church's religious monopoly. Teter forces rethinking of the thesis of Janusz Tazbir, who famously termed Counter-Reformation Poland a state without (p. 225). He claimed that the decline of the Reformation in Poland was gradual and painless (p. 225). Poland, due to its constitutional system and vaunted toleration of dissenters, was spared bloody religious strife (p. 225). Teter insists that, although there may not have been religious wars, or mass trials and autos de fe, numerous individual acts of religious violence imposed by secular courts played key role in Polish re-Catholicization: The stakes were lit . …

Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings (review)

Reviewed by: Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings Michael D. Bailey Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and Readings. By P. G. Maxwell-Stuart. (New York: Continuum. 2011. Pp. x, 228. $32.95. ISBN 978-1-441-14965-7.) This book’s title derives from that of Joseph Hansen’s Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexen-verfolgung im Mittelalter (Bonn, 1900), and the book itself offers in English [End Page 532] translation a selection of the original sources (most in Latin, but some in French and German) that Hansen edited. Maxwell-Stuart has drawn from parts 1, 2, and 6 of Quellen: papal pronouncements, the literature of witchcraft and demonology (that is, extracts from legal documents or theological treatises), and records of witch trials from both ecclesiastical and secular courts. Hansen’s collection had eight parts, but aside from part 3 containing long excerpts from the infamous Malleus maleficarum (now available in several English translations, including an abridgement by Maxwell-Stuart himself), the omitted parts of Quellen are quite small. Even from the sections he does translate, Maxwell-Stuart has had to abridge or excise many of sources to shrink a collection originally near 700 pages down to just over 200. Aside from cuts and abridgements, this volume follows Hansen’s original selection and organization of sources, which is basically chronological within each section (although some of Hansen’s datings have been corrected by subsequent scholarship). Although noting that Hansen’s overall interpretation of the history of magic and witchcraft, which of course shaped his selection and organization of sources, is now outdated, Maxwell-Stuart declares that the “diversity” of Hansen’s materials “presents us with details and voices which generally go unheard or are scarcely noticed in modern collections” (p. 14). Since excerpts from demonological treatises and trial records are the bread and butter of all witchcraft source collections, this probably refers to Hansen’s focus on medieval material, whereas most subsequent collections have focused extensively or indeed exclusively on early-modern witchcraft. Among Hansen’s source-types, Maxwell-Stuart seems clearly to favor papal pronouncements, which fill fully 20 percent of his abridgement, whereas they compose a mere 7 percent of those sections of Hansen that he abridges. As for the translations themselves, there are inevitably choices made that readers will either favor or not, depending on their own preferences. Regarding terms such as malefica or venefica, for example, Maxwell-Stuart adopts the accurate if admittedly “cumbersome” (p. 14) practice of rendering these as “female practitioner of harmful magic” and “female practitioner of poisonous magic” rather than simply as “witch.” He also has a proclivity for rendering long strings of Latin clauses as enumerated lists. This allows modern readers to follow along a bit more easily, but is not strictly faithful to the original texts. Although working exclusively from Hansen is certainly the most practical way to translate a significant volume of medieval sources, those editions have in some cases been augmented or corrected by later scholarship. It would have been useful to have a discussion of this somewhere in the volume. Maxwell-Stuart’s introduction is very brief and seems intended mainly to draw the reader back into a medieval world in which spirits and demons, miracles and magic are all rationally understood components of divine order. He provides very little overview of the medieval history of magic, and, despite presenting Hansen as a representative of the now largely discredited “rationalist” school of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries [End Page 533] (pp. 12–13), he offers no real overview of historiographic trends in witchcraft scholarship. Michael D. Bailey Iowa State University Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

Space and the City

ABSTRACTInfluenced by interdisciplinary studies and the ‘spatial turn’ in social history, this article explores the relationship between space and the construction of gender identity amongst the poor to middling sorts of seventeenth-century Norwich. To this end I have considered gendered interaction in different ‘types' of space: domestic, private space, ‘borderline’ space – such as the alehouse or threshold – and, finally, the public space of streets and markets. Each section explores the relevance of recent spatial historiography in the Norwich context, and evaluates whether men and women inhabited different ‘worlds' in the city, not only in terms of their physical movement or access to certain places but also, more importantly, in terms of how their presence was perceived, and thus their identity shaped by others. The empirical basis is primarily defamation depositions of the Norwich Diocese Court, largely used by the middling sorts, contextualized where appropriate with secular court records.

Application of the Principle of Totality and Integrity in American Case Law

God presented each of us with the gift of human life, for which we each have a duty of stewardship. The complementary principles of totality and integrity provide moral guidance for decisions on whether specific acts are consistent with this obligation. Totality directs that anatomical completeness must not be sacrificed without proportional justification. Integrity focuses on maintaining basic human capacities and provides a hierarchical ordering of higher functions over lower functions for use in decision making. The decisions of secular American courts rely heavily on statutory authority and case precedent. This essay explores whether the moral principle of totality and integrity is reflected in judicial opinions. The first part examines judicial decisions in cases in which the plaintiff’s desired outcome was consistent with the principle of totality and integrity. The second part analyzes judicial decisions in which the desired outcome was not consistent with this moral principle.

Muscovite Law on Monasteries

The author surveys Muscovite law regulating monasteries, focusing on which courts exercised jurisdiction over monasteries and the legal right to appoint or remove superiors of monasteries. Throughout the Muscovite period secular courts had jurisdiction over lawsuits involving claims to land brought by or against monasteries, and this jurisdiction was confirmed in the 1550 Sudebnik. Lawsuits involving “spiritual matters” were heard by church courts, and the Stoglav confirmed the church courts’ jurisdiction over lawsuits brought by laymen against monastic personnel. The Stoglav also gave the tsar a veto over the appointment of monastic superiors, but many secular officials, prelates and the brothers themselves had influence and authority over the choice of a candidate. While the Stoglav and actual practice required that the brothers obey the superior, there is much evidence that in the management of monasteries the superior sought the consensus of his council of elders. Chapter 13 of the 1649 Ulozhenie constituted a major change in the law. It confided jurisdiction over lawsuits against monasteries and their personnel to a state chancellery staffed by lay judges. The 1666-1667 Church Council, however, restored the jurisdiction of church courts to where it had been prior to 1649. Although the law was unstable throughout the Muscovite period, the monasteries continued to exercise some measure of legal autonomy from the state.

The Clerical Dilemma: Peter of Blois and Literate Culture in the Twelfth Century, by John Cotts

John Cotts’s study of Peter of Blois faces two difficulties from the outset: the complexities of Peter’s character and the opaqueness of his class as a subject for historical analysis. The author opts for a judicious negotiation of tangled indicators and bodies of evidence. Single lines of argument have made Peter of Blois into a humanist of dubious reputation (R.W. Southern), a plagiarist (Philippe Delhaye), and a grovelling and ambitious courtier (C.L. Kingsford in the Dictionary of National Biography). His literary activity spans three different scenes: twelfth-century humanism, monastic spirituality, and court society (including ecclesiastical and secular courts). Cotts enters each of these scenes and confronts the contradiction which such boundary-crossings inevitably forced Peter of Blois to confront. The quandary of the cleric seeking legitimacy while caught in crossed obligations is what he calls ‘the clerical dilemma’. What emerges from Cotts’s study is not a consistent thinker, character and actor in twelfth-century intellectual, religious and social life, but a bundle of contradictions. The class of clerical courtiers in which Peter of Blois spent his life is the key to understanding this web of conflicting sentiments and obligations. As Cotts consistently argues, the clerical dilemma is a balancing act of a man with shifting obligations, an advocate and servant of the king, a critic and advocate of the king’s servants—a man who is or was also himself a king’s servant.

Knowing Satan from God: Demonic Possession, Witchcraft, and the Lutheran Orthodox Church in Early Modern Denmark

A 1617 royal ordinance against witches and intensified witch-hunting in early 17th-century Denmark, have been seen as manifesting rigor against witches in Danish Lutheranism. But Lutheran theologians were more concerned with popular practice and lay discipline than with trials for diabolical witchcraft. Witch trials were held in secular courts. Parish priests testified as to the reputation of suspects, prayed for them, and may at times have served as their consultants. Churchmen played a more active role in cases of possession. Children of Niels Munk were said to be possessed, leading to witch trials in which Bishop Hans Wandal was an important force for moderation. The diary of Bishop Hans Mikkelsen shows similar moderation. Bishop Morten Madsen resorted to admotions and injunctions rather than judicial action in response to “false prophecies.” Only in the case of Maren Splids, executed at Ribe in 1641, did a bishop encourage prosecution for witchcraft.

An Equity Against the Law: Slave Rights and Creole Jurisprudence in Spanish America

There exists a long-standing historiographical mystery concerning the legal origins of the practice of Spanish American slaves suing their masters for freedom in royal courts. This essay highlights the importance of working judges' judicial philosophy in the formulation of this customary ‘right’. A close reading of two rare eighteenth-century judicial opinions from Lima, Peru, exposes the rationale of the judges, particularly the Creole judges, who admitted slave cases. High court minister Pedro José Bravo de Lagunas y Castilla considered two legal issues that made slavery distinctive in the region: the right to self-purchase and grants of conditional liberty. In a 1746 letter, the judge rendered a relatively liberal opinion on slaves' legal rights by reading Creoles' own political ‘liberty’ into freedom suits. But as Lima's slaves increasingly entered the secular court system, his judicial philosophy would contract.

The Regulation of Sexuality in the Late Middle Ages: England and France

Marital and family structures, together with the closely related areas of gender relations and attitudes to sexuality, constitute one area in which scholars have suggested medieval England clearly differs from other regions. It is always difficult to compare across regions when the nature of the evidence differs; but because marriage and sexual behavior were under the jurisdiction of the church courts and because the ecclesiastical court system used the same set of legal rules across Europe, one level of difficulty disappears from a comparison. Records from different regions reflect somewhat different procedures or penalties, based on local synodal statutes, but are more commensurable than records of the secular courts, which did not depend on a common set of rules. Basic principles of canon law were universally accepted in western Christendom: marriage was formed by the consent of the parties; marital promises followed by sexual intercourse created an indissoluble marriage; and any extramarital sexual activity by either a husband or a wife was adultery. An examination of church court records from late-medieval Paris compared with better-known records from England suggests that differences between England and northern France in the understanding of sexual behavior and the formation of unions, while they reflect different approaches, were still addressing fundamentally the same issues, and the demographic patterns may not have been as different as scholars have assumed.

The advancement of religion in a pluralist society (Part II): abolishing the public benefit element

If legislatures are not prepared to treat religion separately from charity, this article argues that much of the intended gain could be had by abolishing the requirement in the case of religion that there be public benefit in religious purpose. The law's long-standing and alleviating presumption of the existence of public benefit has been abolished in the UK's three jurisdictions to the concern of the faithful, while the Irish Republic has made the presumption conclusive. Other jurisdictions remain silent. At the same time ‘spiritual benefit’ is something that, unlike material or tangible benefit, secular courts say they cannot assess. The result is confused thought and elusiveness rather than explanation. The only way forward, it is argued, is to recognise religion for what it is, belief and doctrine. The law has remedies to counter the unlawful and the harmful.

Servants of Satan and Masters of Demons: The Spanish Inquisition's Trials for Superstition, Valencia and Barcelona, 1478-1700 (review)

Reviewed by: Servants of Satan and Masters of Demons: The Spanish Inquisition's Trials for Superstition, Valencia and Barcelona, 1478-1700 Gary K. Waite Keywords Spanish Inquisition, witchcraft, Moriscos, Valencia, Barcelona, superstition, Muslim magic, demonology Gunnar W. Knutsen . Servants of Satan and Masters of Demons: The Spanish Inquisition's Trials for Superstition, Valencia and Barcelona, 1478-1700. Turnhout: Brepols, 2009. Pp. xviii + 227. In converting his dissertation into this book, Gunnar W. Knutsen has wisely maintained the narrow focus and goals of his original project. The result is a tightly argued and solidly referenced contribution to the fields of inquisition and witchcraft studies that raises a number of important questions deserving of further attention. His primary goal is to explain the significant variation between northern and southern Spain in the inquisition's persecution of witchcraft, a feature made clear in Gustav Henningsen's 1993 map of witchcraft trials on which Knutsen overlays a map of the geographical distribution of Moriscos—Muslims who had been forcibly converted to Christianity—noting their dominance in the witch-trial-free south and virtual absence in the north, where witch persecution was frequent. Decades ago this coincidence had led Hugh Trevor-Roper to posit that since Moriscos remained the dominant scapegoat, inquisitors were too busy to prosecute witches. Knutsen reveals the answer to be far more interesting. With thousands of surviving trial records, Knutsen sanely restricts his gaze to inquisitorial records for Valencia and Barcelona (Catalonia). Of these eastern maritime neighbors, Valencia fit into the southern pattern of trials for superstition and magic but without the collective sabbat and devil worship of the north, which were prominent features of Barcelona's trials. In 1526, Spain's Inquisitor General had convened a group of theologians who decided [End Page 104] that witches really went to the sabbat and worshipped the devil. However, apart from the abortive 1610-14 Basque witch panic, this affirmation of the demonic witch stereotype did not lead to major witch persecution in Spain's other inquisitorial tribunals. What explains this anomaly? Knutsen presents several possible factors, including the inquisitors' insistence on the rules of evidence, their reluctance to use torture to extract confessions, and the care they took to ensure the accused were provided sufficient opportunity to defend themselves. Yet, such procedural caution was "mediated" by the particular contexts in which the inquisitors worked, illustrated by the frustrating battles with local authorities that severely restricted the ability of Barcelona's inquisitors to act definitively. The difference in judicial behavior is clearest in the treatment of witchfinders: in Catalonia's secular courts they were major figures in convicting witches, whereas Valencia's inquisitors tried such agents for superstition. In Chapter 2, Knutsen overviews Morisco and Old Christian interaction in Valencia. Against Trevor-Roper, Knutsen posits a cultural influence of Moriscos on popular attitudes toward magic and demons. Muslim magic emphasized the control and even sale of lesser demons, hence in Valencia, popular culture rejected the demonologists' insistence that demons were ultimately in control and that all magic worked through a pact with the devil. Valencian denunciators did not accuse neighbors of diabolism, while suspects refused to acknowledge membership in a diabolical sect. Even after the Morisco expulsion of 1609-14, Old Christian "superstitions" continued to resemble Moriscos versions, and Knutsen logically posits an enduring Muslim influence. Knutsen then presents a statistical comparison of the two tribunals, noting that all ten Moriscos tried for superstition by Valencia's inquisitors were indeed charged with invoking demons, a speciality of Muslim magic. Knutsen resolves the north-south differentiation by concluding, "the Christian areas [Catalonia] were infected with Satan's servants while the mixed Christian-Muslim areas were infested with masters of demons" (p. 81). Knutsen's Part 2 deals with the inquisitorial records of Barcelona, where French influence and professional witchfinders played a major role in encouraging witch persecution and the region's secular jurists faced a veritable "plague of witches." The height of witch-hunting occurred around 1620, and Knutsen draws from the Inquisition's relaciones de causas—summaries of the trials—a list of fifty-two accused witches (forty-six of them women). He discovers that their confessions accorded with the demonological stereotype, including...

Islamic Law in Secular Courts (Again): Teachable Moments from the Journey

A trio of English Court cases illustrates some of the issues and complications that arise when secular courts are asked to resolve disputes involving Islamic law, Muslim litigants and Islamic financial institutions. These cases also demonstrate the need for the further clarification and harmonization of Islamic law, particularly in banking and finance. This note discusses the relevant arguments and outcomes of these cases, case lessons, and the need for further clarity and predictability in Islamic banking and finance.

The Prosecution of Sexual Crimes in Early Eighteenth-Century Scotland

A session of the north circuit held at Perth on 20 May 1709 marked a turning point in the prosecution of sexual crimes in Scotland and a significant change in the administration of Scottish criminal justice. By pardoning more than 300 men and women charged with fornication and adultery, the court brought about the de facto decriminalisation of those crimes in the Scottish secular courts. An incest trial held before the court the same day revealed difficulties in the prosecution of this crime and challenged prevailing male and clerical attitudes towards rape. The proceedings of the court also demonstrated the growing reluctance of Scottish advocates to appeal to biblical authority in criminal prosecutions. The legal developments at Perth were made possible by a bill of indemnity passed by the British parliament in 1708, the abolition of the Scottish privy council in the same year, and the establishment of a comprehensive circuit court system in Scotland.

Judicial Biases in Ottoman Istanbul: Islamic Justice and Its Compatibility with Modern Economic Life

The transition to impersonal exchange and modern economic growth has depended on the emergence of courts that enforce contracts efficiently. This paper shows that Islamic courts of the Ottoman Empire exhibited biases that would have limited the expansion of exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly those between Muslims and non-Muslims. It thus explains why economic modernization in the Middle East required the establishment of secular courts. In quantifying Ottoman judicial biases, the paper also discredits the view that these courts treated Christians and Jews fairly as well as the counter-view that they ruled against non-Muslims disproportionately. Biases against non-Muslims were in fact institutionalized. By the same token, non-Muslims did relatively well in adjudicated interfaith disputes, because they settled most conflicts out of court in anticipation of judicial biases. Islamic courts also appear to have exhibited biases in favor of state officials. The paper thus refutes the Islamist claim that reinstituting Islamic law (sharia) would be economically beneficial.

Litigating the Schism: Orthodoxy and Property in the Episcopal Church USA – Reforming the Dennis Canon

This paper assesses the abilities of courts currently to resolve property disputes in the Episcopal Church USA, arguing that current establishment clause jurisprudential limitations necessitate that churches seek internal resolution of these matters and rely less upon secular courts as a result. It makes various suggestions towards improving the current practices.

Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations, Medical History Supplement No. 29 (London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009). ISBN 0-85484-128-8 (HC). 5 B&W illustrations, v + 158 pp. by Teresa Huguet-Termes

148 BOOK REVIEWS in a lively and engaging style, this study will appeal to both early modernists and medical historians alike. MICHAEL PICKERING UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE Teresa Huguet-Termes, Jon Arrizabalaga, and Harold J. Cook, eds, Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations, Medical History Supplement No. 29 (London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009). ISBN 0-85484-128-8 (HC). 5 B&W illustrations, v + 158 pp. As Harold J. Cook argues in the introduction to this volume, for too long English language readers have had a limited view of Spanish science, and little has been available to English speakers. The editors organised a conference in 2006 from which these papers (and others invited subsequently) stem. Not all the authors are specialists of medicine, but together their papers provide insight into Spanish medicine in a variety of ways. MaríaLuzLópezTerradasetsoutthesystemsofcontroldeveloped in Valencia to regulate practice, reveals the extent of medical pluralism, and finishes with a case study of Llorenç Coçar, named protomédico y soprevisitador real [royal physician and supervisor in chief] in 1589. He was practising chemical medicine with support from Philip II but was charged by colleagues at the medical faculty for developing Paracelsian medicines at home and overcharging. She reads this as an attempt to limit crown control of the practice and licensing of official medicine and argues that Coçar’s case highlights both the extent and support of pluralism, as well as the forces of regulation and their varied concerns. MarReyBuenoexploresPhilipII’sinterestinsecrets,distillations, and other alchemical ideas, which have previously been seen as attempts to acquire gold and to preserve his life. A more detailed analysis, she argues, suggests a deeper intellectual curiosity as he firstly employed diverse specialists across different cities, and later established a laboratory at El Escorial. Rey Bueno sees this not as an occult practice by the Counter-Reformation king, but as a natural interest in the world, which was directed towards outcomes for his Empire. María Tausiet explores the distinctions between witches and Health & History ● 12/2 ● 2010 149 those healers who claimed divine healing power. Her analysis suggests that secular court trials produced harsher outcomes, the majority legimitising the cases as witchcraft that came before them, whereas ecclesiastical courts allowed more investigation and were generally less willing to accept the notion of witchcraft generally. An increasing number of saludadores [charismatic healers] were however being prosecuted, not for the principles of healing that underpinned their activities, but for forging official documentation. Opinion on saludadores varied within the Church, which upheld the possibility that such healers might exist by granting licenses, although such faith healing could never be fully controlled. In her chapter, Teresa Huguet-Termes explores hospital developments in Madrid, which was made the capital in 1561. She argues that improvements to health care were used as political tools for change by the dynasty, and that the second half of the sixteenth century saw new charitable endeavours and a slow move towards medical specialisation. Although crown legislation focussed on the royal hospital and sick paupers, Huguet-Termes argues that by allowing healthy paupers to beg, Spain’s authorities were upholding key Counter-Reformation Catholic principles and giving alms-givers the opportunity to practice individual charity. Moving to literary presentations, Mónica Bolufer examines humanist physician Juan Huarte de San Juan’s Examen de ingenios para las sciencas [The Examination of Men’s Wits] (1575) which argued that the height of achievement was to perfect characteristics distinct to each sex. This mirrored notions of different and essential moral, intellectual qualities and social functions of the sexes to be found in popular literature. In the case of breastfeeding advice books, Bolufer notes that authors were sensitive to social class distinctions; although they encouraged breastfeeding, they were also aware of the social tensions among the elite that render it less likely. She concludes that whereas sixteenth- and seventeenth-century physicians justified contemporary social practices, by the eighteenth century maternal breastfeeding gained prominence among medical writers as new values towards privacy, family, and domesticity emerged. In the book’s final chapter, Jon Arrizabalaga situates Roderigo De Castro’s intellectual agenda within the context of...

Flirting with God in Western Secular Courts: Mahr in the West

Through the journey of one symbolic legal institution - mahr (a form of dowry) - the article follows the ways in which Islamic marriage travels to Canada, the USA, France, and Germany, offering a panoply of conflicting images, contradictions, and distributive endowments in the transit from Islamic family law to Western adjudication. I insist on the importance that distributive consequences rather than recognition occupy central place in the assessment of the legal options available to Muslim women in Western courts. The article constitutes an important methodological contribution to the debates over the role of identity politics and the (im)possibility of legal transplants in comparative law. My argument is that mahr cannot travel to Western liberal courts without carrying a very complex interaction among several parties whose interests are often opposed as to its recognition. A legal realist and distributive analysis of Islamic marriage is crucial, I argue, because mahr is often used by the parties as a tool of relative bargaining power in the negotiation of contractual obligations related to the family. Moreover, Islamic law travels with a multiplicity of voices, and it is this complex hybridity that will be mediated through Western law upon adjudication.

BIGAMOUS MARRIAGE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

ABSTRACTThough divorce followed by remarriage was illegal in early modern England, a considerable number of people whose marriage had failed or whose spouse had deserted ventured to marry again, either uncertain of the law or choosing to defy it. Bigamy, traditionally a spiritual offence, came to be seen as a significant social problem and was made a felony in 1604. Drawing on ecclesiastical and secular court records and a variety of other sources, this article examines the legal framework, offers a typology of bigamists, and explores the circumstances surrounding their actions. It finds that offenders, predominantly male, ranged from the unlucky or feckless to the cynically manipulative, among them a small number of serial bigamists. It also asks how such offences might come to light in an age of relatively poor communications, and examines the plight of those who had married a bigamist in good faith. Finally it examines the likelihood of conviction, and the punishment of those who confessed or were convicted.

Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896 – 1930 (review)

Reviewed by: Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896 – 1930 Matthew Lagrone (bio) Ira Robinson. Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896 – 1930. University of Calgary Press. xii, 168. $34.95 Ira Robinson’s latest book represents a significant addition to the study of Canadian/North American Jewry. Rabbis and Their Community focuses on the development, changes, and challenges in Montreal’s immigrant Orthodox rabbinate in the first third of the twentieth century. This work is part of a growing academic correction in the common portrayal of East European immigrants. Until recently, most scholarship in this area has tilted heavily towards secular and non-Orthodox Jewish immigrants, [End Page 359] although many immigrants in fact retained their Orthodoxy. Robinson’s work shows that the story of Orthodox Jews cannot be discounted in the account of East European migration to North America, because the arc of a community’s maturity is shaped by both internal Orthodox interaction and contact with secular and liberal Jews. This study of Montreal rabbis centres on clergy and intellectuals who, if not as well known as later and more prominent Jewish leaders, made the conditions possible for Orthodoxy to flourish. Robinson retrieves these men from the dust of history, situating them in the cultural, intellectual, and religious centre of Montreal Jewry as they strove to maintain the distinctiveness of traditional Judaism while adapting to the norms of North American society. For Orthodox rabbis in this period, clerical life was demanding and difficult. Salaries were almost universally inadequate in the East European immigrant community and had to be supplemented often through the supervision of kosher meat, a recurrent topic in Robinson’s narrative. He notes that East European–born rabbis arrived in North America for two reasons: some were young and sought brighter prospects outside of Europe, and some had failed in business and turned to the rabbinate as an alternative. These rabbis – important but largely ‘forgotten’ men such as Hirsh Cohen, Simon Glazer, Getsel Laxar, and Yudel Rosenberg – had to adjust to the libertarian ethos of North America in general and North American Jewry in particular. Jewish communities in the United States and Canada were less unified than their European counterparts, and subsequently issues of authority were trickier in the absence of an acknowledged leadership. Although attempts at communal unity were partially successful, these rabbis lacked the internally compelling authority, based on law, tradition, and custom, that their European colleagues expected. Robinson devotes much of the book to a discussion of the ‘kosher meat wars’ that occupied the Montreal Jewish community. Jewish law contains detailed regulations for the proper slaughter of permitted animals, and the supervision of this practice was contested between two rabbinic groups. Controlling supervision of kosher meat was one of the few profitable enterprises for an immigrant rabbi, and this supervision also suggested who had religious authority in the Orthodox community. The first group, led by the powerful Hirsh Cohen and his supporters, was opposed by a dissident group of rabbis, led by Rabbis Laxar and Rosenberg. Cohen’s group was supported by Hirsh Wolofsky, perhaps the most influential powerbroker in the community. An editor of the leading Yiddish- and English-language newspapers of the Jewish press, Wolofsky championed Cohen as the head of kosher meat regulation, forcing the second group to resort to ad hoc flyers to cheer their supervision. Advocates of each side accused the other of improper supervision, of [End Page 360] allowing Jews to purchase unfit meat and thus inadvertently commit a halakhic transgression. The dispute involved physical confrontations and lawsuits in secular courts, but eventually a clenched-teeth peace was reached. Rabbis and Their Community provides scholars of Canadian/North American Jewry an invaluable snapshot of a significant and changing immigrant Orthodox community. Without Robinson’s research, the contributions of these rabbis would be lost. Matthew Lagrone Matthew LaGrone, Jewish Studies Program, University of Delaware Copyright © 2009 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Honor, Debate, and Translatio imperii in Cligés

Honor, Debate, and Translatio imperii in Cligés Douglas Kelly (bio) This article treats the subject of honor as it is debated in Chrétien’s romance. It deals in particular with the specific ways the topic can be evaluated, with an eye toward audience reaction and even discussion in the medieval court. The relation of honor to translatio imperii is also discussed. (dk) The prologue to Chrétien de Troyes’s Cligés concludes with the translatio imperii et studii commonplace that Chrétien interprets as the passage of chivalry and clergy (chevalerie and clergie) from Greece through Rome to France. Chrétien hopes that the honor (vss. 38–39)1 will abide there forevermore and not pass away as happened with France’s two predecessors. Chivalry no doubt includes knighthood and chivalric and, indeed, courtly practice of that office.2 Learning what clergy teaches fosters honor in the nation through books such as that Chrétien reports having found in Saint-Pierre de Beauvais.3 From this book he drew a tale about a Greek prince who went to Arthur’s court for the purpose of acquiring fame and renown, true signs of honor from the highest secular court in his time. In this way Chrétien upholds chivalry through clergy in France and, by doing so, he promotes honor in the nation where he wants earnestly to maintain it. What is honor? A debatable issue in Cligés, the answer to which reveals the ethos of the romance and an important component of chevalerie and clergie. Enor, or honor in Old French, has a wider semantic range imbedded in the word than in modern French, a range that Chrétien’s audiences might readily recognize. The Glossary to our edition of Cligés contains a number of these meanings (pp. 346–47 s.v. ‘enor’): ‘honor,’ of course, in the abstract senses current today, but also ‘conduct necessary to lead an honorable life’ as well as ‘a domain transmissible as inheritance,’ a crucial issue in the relation between Alis and Cligés. For example, Fénice does not want to have a child by whom Cligés would be deprived ‘De l’enor qui soe doit estre’ (vs. 3171) [of the domain that is his by rights] and therefore be disinherited (vs. 3173).4 ‘Honor’ may also be conferred as a sign of respect or admiration; this act leads to fame and renown for acts deemed honorable.5 The word may also apply [End Page 33] to acts that of and by themselves are dishonorable, if such acts are a response to dishonor in others. Cligés’s serf Jehan justifies his master’s abduction of Alis’s wife and her own deception of her husband because of the emperor’s own ‘desenor’: by marrying, Alis breaks his oath to his brother Alexandre not to marry so that Cligés might inherit the throne and the Greek enor after his uncle passes away (vss. 6548–59). This last example shows how Chrétien can negotiate issues of honor in order to uncover special or remarkable instances of the virtue in the midst of particular impediments that arise in narrative. The romance Chrétien writes promotes chevalerie by recounting a Greek tale in which honor is at stake. The protagonists confront issues that they seek to resolve in honorable ways. The confrontation sparks debates between them and in their own minds and, indeed, with tradition within two prominent areas usually covered by chevalerie: the knight’s public duty to fight in just causes and the knight’s and lady’s private duty to love well. Such love—‘courtly’ love, experienced and lived at court—is both chivalric and noble; it should therefore promote honor. To achieve this goal requires that decisions be made following deliberation, with others and in one’s own mind, about honorable choices. Recent interest in the debate mode in medieval literature naturally brings to mind Chrétien de Troyes’s contribution to the topic.6 Such debates are common in all Chrétien’s romances. Here I shall not treat the Alexandre-Soredamors and Cligés-Fénice parts in succession, as is customary...