Crime And Culture In Early Modern Germany (studies In Early Modern German History)

With the growth of printing in early modern Germany, crime quickly became a subject of wide public discourse. Sensational crime reports, often featuring multiple murders within families, proliferated as authors probed horrific events for religious meaning. Coinciding with heightened witch panics and economic crisis, the spike in crime fears revealed a continuum between fears of the occult and more mundane dangers. In Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany, Joy Wiltenburg explores the beginnings of crime sensationalism from the early sixteenth century into the seventeenth century and beyond. Comparing the depictions of crime in popular publications with those in archival records, legal discourse, and imaginative literature, Wiltenburg highlights key social anxieties and analyzes how crime texts worked to shape public perceptions and mentalities. Reports regularly featured familial destruction, flawed economic relations, and the apocalyptic thinking of Protestant clergy. Wiltenburg examines how such literature expressed and shaped cultural attitudes while at the same time reinforcing governmental authority. She also shows how the emotional inflections of crime stories influenced the growth of early modern public discourse, so often conceived in terms of rational exchange of ideas. List Of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Crime And Society : Patterns In Deed And Word -- Law And The Rational Hero -- Crime Into Text -- Crime And Christianity -- Family Murders -- Training The Imagination : Crime And The Inner Life -- Staging The Lamentable Theater : Crime, Reason, And Emotion In The Seventeenth Century -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. Joy Wiltenburg. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [193]-259) And Index. Contents pp. v-v Illustrations pp. vi-vi Acknowledgments pp. vii-x Introduction pp. 1-20 Crime and Society pp. 21-41 Law and the Rational Hero pp. 42-64 Crime into Text pp. 65-87 Crime and Christianity pp. 88-110 Family Murders pp. 111-135 Training the Imagination pp. 136-162 Staging the Lamentable Theater pp. 163-184 Conclusion pp. 185-192 Notes pp. 193-224 Bibliography pp. 225-260 Index pp. 261-268 Further Reading pp. 269-270 Explores the beginnings of crime sensationalism from the early sixteenth century into the seventeenth century and beyond. Comparing the depictions of crime in popular publications with those in archival records, legal discourse, and imaginative literature, Wiltenburg highlights key social anxieties and analyses how crime texts worked to shape public perceptions and mentalities.