This book will lead readers into a medieval culture of ambition,
greed, and jealousy that motivated men and women to take the lives
of individuals who trusted them. Collard examines the perception of
the crime of poisoning in the West in medieval times, from about
500 to 1500 AD, exploring the ways the alleged crime was perceived
in contemporary minds. His primary sources are chronicles that
cover the entire medieval period and legal texts that are limited
to the late medieval centuries. In order to portray the culture of
murder by poisoning in the West, it was necessary to take into
account Byzantine and Islamic documents as well as ancient texts
such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians, both
of which were widely known in the Middle Ages.
This book will lead readers into a medieval culture of ambition,
greed, and jealousy that motivated men and women to take the lives
of individuals who trusted them. In these pages, French medievalist
Franck Collard examines the perception of the crime of poisoning in
the West from about 500 to 1500. His primary sources of information
are chronicles that cover the entire medieval period and legal
texts that are limited to the late medieval centuries. In order to
portray the culture of murder by poisoning in the West, he takes
into account Byzantine and Islamic documents, as well as ancient
texts such as the Scriptures and the writings of Roman historians,
both of which were widely known in the Middle Ages.
The resulting volume is concerned with the criminal actions that
involve poison and not poison as such. Poisonous substances as such
are described only when necessary for an understanding of a crime.
What is important here is an examination of the ways the alleged
crime was perceived in contemporary minds. Poisoning avoids the use
of violence. It was committed without a drawn weapon or bloodshed
in a world in which wounds, swords, knives, and clubs represented
aggression and in which the flow of blood determined the gravity of
the crime. Necessarily involving preparation and secrecy, it was
often perpetrated treacherously during a meal, a particularly
heinous act in a universe that was united by the companionship of a
meal and the sociability of drinking. The special horror associated
with poisoning resulted from the treachery of those close to the
victim-and a sudden death that prevented a final confession of
sins.
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