Not for the faint-hearted, perhaps.
(click on image above)
There is quite a lot of commentary with these images. I would appreciate comments on how much sense it makes to non-experts; there are some quite complicated issues that I have to get across to 2nd-year students next spring, and I always worry about whether my explanations are clear enough…
I should be starting to put some serious thought into that course, too.
14 comments on “Documents: A Murder Trial”
Nice work. I’d like to use this in my class, perhaps. (?) I think that the commentary is good, but I have to admit I’m more the “introduce the document with no commentary, then bring out the commentary in discussion” type. How will you be presenting it to the students? If you are presenting it as written, what will they be learning and remembering from this? I realise this may sound critical, but it’s not meant that way. I’ve just been doing a lot of assessment-type things lately and, while I think they are all-too-often used by evil administrators, I have become much more conscious of asking myself what I’m trying to get the students to learn before presenting information.
Thanks for that very good advice, ADM. (I’m still very much a novice as a teacher, and am always grateful for others’ experience.) I haven’t given this course anywhere near enough thought yet. It’s a sources-and-methods type course in small groups (shouldn’t be much more than 12). I won’t necessarily be using this commentary as such (these web pages will be more likely a back up resource), it’s more that if I do explain things along these lines, is it coherent and intelligible to people who have never heard of (say) benefit of clergy? I do agree about starting off with documents without commentary to get things going and then develop things from there.
You’ll probably be hearing more about this course before long, anyway.
I think the stuff is definitely cogent. Perhaps a glossary might also be of use?
I think I qualify as a non-expert, so, for a stude’s perspective:
I understood it all perfectly. I could comfortably refer to the documents from your pointers, with one minor quibble: In ‘The Verdict: Jury Return’ section. I found the very last sentence under the sub-header, “First entry after the list of jurors’ names” which reads: “‘Read’, ‘burned’, bailed (notes in margin). [parchment]” to be confusing. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, there. I think it just needs rewording to be plainer. Obviously, it can confuse a stupid person! This is very minor, though - when I was at Uni I was sure some of my lecturers couldn’t even write!
…as for the content, I see not a lot’s changed in 350 years. I soon got into a mindset where I could have been reading the Teletext regional newspages.
ADM: I was thinking that putting together a glossary might be a good idea, so that the students would have a quick reference to anything they weren’t sure about. (Great minds think alike!)
Thanks Steve. The layout of a jury return can be difficult to follow, and I should probably have made a note about that. The list of names was written out before the trial(s) with spaces left between them, and then the verdict and sentence were inserted afterwards: the verdict is always written in above the defendant’s name, and the sentence (if recorded in this document) then added in the left hand margin. Does that help? (If it does, I’ll edit it in.)
Elsewhere, I’ve used modern criminological research on men’s ‘confrontational’ homicides to point to the long term continuities in the dynamics of male-on-male violence; homicide rates declined everywhere in Europe (and indeed north America), which is what most historians tend to focus on, from the medieval period until the second half of the 20th century, but the reasons why men get into fights (which sometimes prove fatal) have been strikingly consistent. You can (if you really want!) read more here. I wish I had witness statements for this particular case; from experience I have a very good idea of roughly what they would say…
It had been customary to value an object that caused a mortal wound (whether wielded homicidally or the result of an accident) for compensation purposes
Actually, such property was “deodand,” and was forfeited to the crown or the church (depending on the time and jurisdiction) to be used for charitable purposes. The deodand law wasn’t abolished until the 19th century, although I don’t know whether it was regularly enforced in the 17th.
THE VERDICT: Jury Return
One thing I find interesting about these documents is that there is no summary of the testimony of the witnesses. The documents from this period with which I’m most familiar are London trial reports and magistrates’ notes, which usually contain some indication of the trial testimony (sometimes a verbatim account, more usually a summary) in addition to the charges and the verdict. Was it common for trials outside London not to include this?
Secondly, many early modern jurors were not the ‘novices’ of today; not only did they often serve at several trials in one session - as you can see from this jury return - they could be called to serve repeatedly over many years.
In London during the 18th century, a City jury and a Middlesex jury (or sometimes two of each) were empaneled to sit for an entire term of the court. The jurors might decide hundreds of cases - in many ways, petit jury service in C18th London seems more like modern American grand jury service than what we would know as jury duty. Again, I have no idea how true this was outside London; at the very least, the courts were probably less busy.
late in the [18th] century imprisonment was introduced in cases of manslaughter
And for many other offenses beginning in the 1770s, as the penitentiary movement began to gain traction.
Elizabeth Johnson: witchcraft: not guilty; remanded in custody
How common were such charges in England at this time?
Jonathan: Thanks. Deodands: I was trying to remember the correct term, and I wrote that paragraph from memory with my fingers slightly crossed (with the intention of looking it up when I get home, honest…). I do want to check what was happening on that front by the 17th century…
Accounts of trials outside London: If only… The pamphlet literature does take in many provincial cases in the 17th and 18th centuries, but they don’t always say much about the actual trials; there really isn’t a provincial equivalent of the OBSP. And I’ve yet to come across archival materials similar to the magistrates’ notes you’re describing (not in my period anyway; possibly later in the 18th century…). It seems to be something quite peculiar to London. In Wales, printed accounts of trials, even short ones, are very few and far between really until the 19th century (when you start to get them in newspapers). I’ve put up a few bits and pieces in the Wales and the Law section of EMR (there is a link on the home page). What I’m working with mainly are pre-trial examinations.
Jury service: repeated service on juries over time as well as serving on several (or all) trials at a session of a court (although not on the scale of what you describe for London) seems to be ubiquitous throughout England and Wales - it’s found to some degree everywhere that’s been studied. Actually, I have no idea when this system changed (should look that up)… This applies to both grand and petty (trial) juries.
Witchcraft charges: this is one of those subjects that’s been studied extensively. It varied considerably in different parts of the country. Essex is notorious for witchcraft trials (think Matthew Hopkins), though even there they are clustered at times of heightened instability and anxiety; in Wales, by contrast, there were very few. And for once I can give you some figures: Essex 1620-80: 101 trials; Cheshire 1580-1709: 34; the whole of Wales 1550-1730: 37. Acquittals were quite common. (Anybody who wants the references for those figures, just email me.)
Yes, this explaination clears it up. I’d definitely edit in. Ta.
Re the qualifications of jurors, you may be interested in this trial in the OBSP. Under an 18th-century statute, defendants in treason cases were given lists of prospective jurors prior to trial, and both they and the Crown were allowed peremptory challenges. This particular trial gives the entire list of jurors by name and occupation, whether they were sworn, and if not, the reason they were excused.
For the most part, they are a middle-class lot with merchants predominating, although there are also some skilled tradesmen (including a bricklayer and mason). The most reasons for dismissal included age, illness, deafness, role as a witness in the case, inaccurate descriptions in the jury list (some of them quite technical) as well as “not a freeholder” and “not a householder.” (At least two of those listed as “gentlemen” were excused because they weren’t freeholders, which seems to be evidence for your argument that not all jurors described as gentlemen actually had that status.) Those who did not appear for the summons were fined.
This jury list may also be of interest, if only because one of its members (Abraham Francia) was almost certainly Jewish; the Francias were one of the most prominent Jewish families in England at that time. I know of at least one other Jew, a confectioner named Jacob Spinoza, who also served on a London jury.
Bear in mind that the above examples were from the 1790s and may or may not reflect on jury qualifications in your period, but I thought you might appreciate them anyway.
That sounds quite familiar for earlier periods too; a number of historians have managed to do some very detailed work on the status of jurors, although the petty (ie, trial) jury returns I’ve seen in Denbighshire and now cheshire tend just to be lists of names - difficult to find out anything more about people on that basis. I can only presume that some counties’ records are more informative. The best documents, where they survive, are the lists drawn up of eligible householders from which jurors were summoned… Grand jury lists usually give where people live, so it becomes a little easier (if you have the inclination, which I don’t) to investigate the accuracy or otherwise of the status given.
You also sometimes get petitions from people asking to be exempted from jury service (or not fined for their failure to turn up) on the grounds that they don’t have enough property, are too old and feeble or (in Wales) don’t speak English. Of course, like petitions generally, it’s often wise to be a wee bit sceptical unless there’s further corroboration of the claims being made… But I like petitions anyway. Maybe I’ll put up a few.
One more thing: One of the jurors in the 1796 treason trial was excused because he was a “freeholder of only 8 pounds a year.” I assume that this was a reference to the rental value of his home rather than his income; am I correct?
You know, I’m not sure. Surely it must be; £8 a year sounds a very, very low income by that stage (since the lowliest live-in domestic servants earned something like £3 a year in the early 18th century, and I think that went up a good deal during the century…). And I *think* that terminology would normally suggest rental value.
BTW, I was going to add to your comments on challenges. I had an idea that all defendants had the right to challenge jurors? (I’m certain it’s true of misdemeanour trials, which resembled treason trials (from the late 17th century) and, of course civil suits, in that defendants were permitted lawyers in court - and were often of higher status and better educated than felony trial defendants. The story of how defence lawyers gradually gained entry to felony trials, probably from c.1730 in London, even though they weren’t officially allowed until the law changed in the 19th century, and how this changed the dynamics of the trial, is itself fascinating; have you read John Langbein’s work?) But few felony defendants would ever have exercised such rights. Most were pitched straight into the trial from appalling conditions in prison, they were likely to be malnourished, weak or even ill and most would have only a limited understanding of the law. I know they had the right in theory to challenge technical inaccuracies/insufficiencies in the indictment, but almost never did - although I’ve very recently come across a few 17th century Cheshire examples in homicide cases - but I’m not so certain about challenging juries.
BTW, I was going to add to your comments on challenges. I had an idea that all defendants had the right to challenge jurors?
By this time, yes. Peremptory challenges go back to the 13th century and challenges for cause (I believe) to at least the 14th; at first, only the Crown could exercise peremptory challenges but defendants got them relatively early on. They were hardly ever used by defendants, though, with the exception of the treason cases.
have you read John Langbein’s work?
I haven’t, although it’s on my list. BTW, I’ve elaborated on my above comment here.