Felony and the guilty mind in Medieval England / Elizabeth Papp Kamali.

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

1 online resource (xv, 336 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Studies in legal history.

This book explores the role of mens rea, broadly defined as a factor in jury assessments of guilt and innocence from the early thirteenth through the fourteenth century - the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury. Drawing upon evidence from the plea rolls, but also relying heavily upon non-legal textual sources such as popular literature and guides for confessors, Elizabeth Papp Kamali argues that issues of mind were central to jurors' determinations of whether a particular defendant should be convicted, pardoned, or acquitted outright. Demonstrating that the word 'felony' itself connoted a guilty state of mind, she explores the interplay between social conceptions of guilt and innocence and jury behavior. Furthermore, she reveals a medieval understanding of felony that involved, in its paradigmatic form, three essential elements: an act that was reasoned, was willed in a way not constrained by necessity, and was evil or wicked in its essence.

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 17 Jul 2019).

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Cambridge Books Online.

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9781108670890 (ebook)
9781108498791 (hardback)
9781108712743 (paperback)

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