Larissa Tracy 
Medieval and Early Modern Murder 
Legal, Literary and Historical Contexts

Drawing on a wealth of sources from different disciplines, the essays here provide a nuanced picture of how medieval and early modern societies viewed murder and dealt with murderers.


Murder – the perpetrators, victims, methods and motives – has been the subject of law, literature, chronicles and religion, often crossing genres and disciplines and employing multiple modes of expression and interpretation. As the chapters in this volume demonstrate, definitions of murder, manslaughter and justified or unjustified homicide depend largely on the legal terminology and the laws of the society. Much like modern nations, medieval societies treated murder and murderers differently based on their social standing, the social standing of the victim, their gender, their mental capacity for understanding their crime, and intent, motive and means.

The three parts of this volume explore different aspects of this crime in the Middle Ages. The first provides the legal template for reading cases of murder in a variety of sources. The second examines the public hermeneutics of murder, especially theways in which medieval societies interpreted and contextualised their textual traditions: Icelandic sagas, Old French fabliaux, Arthuriana and accounts of assassination. Finally, the third part focuses on the effects of murder within the community: murder as a social ill, especially in killing kin.


LARISSA TRACY is Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University.


Contributors: Dianne Berg, G. Koolemans Beynen, Dwayne C. Coleman, Jeffrey Doolittle, Carmel Ferragud, Jay Paul Gates, Thomas Gobbitt, Emily J. Hutchison, Jolanta N. Komornicka, Anne Latowsky, Matthew Lubin, Andrew Mc Kenzie-Mc Harg, Ben Parsons, Ilse Schweitzer Van Donkelaar, Hannah Skoda, Bridgette Slavin, Larissa Tracy, Patricia Turning, Lucas Wood

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Introduction: Murder Most Foul

Secret Killing and Murder by Magic in the Law of Adomnán – Bridgette Slavin

Discursive Murders: The St Brice’s Day Massacre,
Beowulf and
Morðor – Jay Paul Gates

Mourning Murderers in Medieval Jewish Law – Pinchas Roth

Treacherous Murder: Language and Meaning in French Murder Trials – Jolanta Komornicka

‘Mordre wol out’: Murder and Justice in Chaucer – Larissa Tracy

Bringing Murder to Light: Death, Publishing and Performance in Icelandic Sagas – Ilse Schweitzer Van Donkelaar

‘I Think This Bacon is Wearing Shoes’: Comedy and Murder in the Old French Fabliaux – Anne Latowsky

‘Chevaliers ocirre’: Manslaughter, Morality and Meaning in the
Queste del Saint Graal – Lucas Wood

Murder, Manslaughter and Reputation: Killing in Malory’s
Le Morte Darthur – Dwayne Coleman

Poisoning as a Means of State Assassination in Early Modern Venice – Matthew Lubin

Defamation, a Murder
More Foul?: The ‘Second Murder’ of Louis, Duke of Orleans [d. 1407] Reconsidered – Emily Hutchison

‘A general murther, an universal slaughter’: Strategies of Anti-Jesuit Defamation in Reporting Assassination in the Early Modern Period – Andrew Mc Kenzie-Mc Harg

Negotiating Murder in the
Historiae of Gregory of Tours – Jeffrey Doolittle

Poisoning, Killing and Murder in the
Edictus Rothari – Thomas Gobbitt

Murder, Foul and Fair, in Shota Rustaveli’s
The Man in the Panther Skin – G. Koolemans Beynen

A Multiple Poisoning in the City of Valencia: Sanxo Calbó’s Crime [1442] – Carmel Ferragud

A Case of Mariticide in Late Medieval France – Patricia Turning

Monstrous Un-Making: Maternal Infanticide and Female Agency in Early Modern England – Dianne Berg

Imps of Hell: Young People, Murder and the Early English Press – Ben Parsons

Conclusion – Hannah Skoda

Select Bibliography

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Larissa Tracy is Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University. She has published extensively on medieval violence and its intersections with literature, law, medicine, and social identity.