An exploration of the cultural contexts of law-breaking and criminal prosecution in England, 1550-1750.

Still the only general survey of the topic available, this widely-used exploration of the incidence, causes and control of crime in Early Modern England throws a vivid light on the times. It uses court archives to capture vividly the everyday lives of people who would otherwise have left little mark on the historical record. This new edition - fully updated throughout - incorporates new thinking on many issues including gender and crime; changes in punishment; and literary perspectives on crime.

Although, in recent decades, the study of England's early modern crime problems and its criminal justice system has flourished, there has been a general tendency for existing studies to focus either on crime, largely the province of social historians, or procedure, which is frequently left to legal historians. However, the two were inextricably interlinked: crimes were primarily defined by their legal consequences and trials were shaped by the social background to offences. The aim of Gregory Durston's book is to treat the subject holistically, from initial deviance, via detection, arrest and prosecution to final penal disposal. Thus, crime, policing, court structure, criminal trial procedure and punishment are each given detailed consideration in this tripartite study. Additionally, in a field that has become increasingly dominated by micro-histories at the expense of geographically and chronologically broader studies, Dr. Durston aims to explore wider themes while also providing a thorough account of the era's crime problems and justice system.

An extended study of gender and crime in early modern England. It considers the ways in which criminal behaviour and perceptions of criminality were informed by ideas about gender and order, and explores their practical consequences for the men and women who were brought before the criminal courts. Dr Walker's innovative approach demonstrates that, contrary to received opinion, the law was often structured so as to make the treatment of women and men before the courts incommensurable. For the first time, early modern criminality is explored in terms of masculinity as well as femininity. Illuminating the interactions between gender and other categories such as class and civil war have implications not merely for the historiography of crime but for the social history of early modern England as a whole. This study therefore goes beyond conventional studies, and challenges hitherto accepted views of social interaction in the period.

An exploration of links between opinion and governance in Early Modern England, studying moral panics about crime, sex and belief. Hypothesizing that media-driven panics proliferated in the 1700s, with the development of newspapers and government sensibility to opinion, it also considers earlier panics about cross-dressing and witchcraft.