Книга Дела плоти. Интимная жизнь людей Средневековья в пространстве судебной полемики - Ольга Тогоева

This book is an attempt to study what is usually hidden in the historical sources — the particulars of private life of the people in the Middle Ages and in the early Modern Times, their personal experiences, their marital love and betrayals, the unshared feelings, friendship, offence, their attempts to solve family problems on their own or resorting to the judicial authorities. The research is based primarely on the archival records (Archives Nationales de la France. Série JJ — Registres du Trésor des chartes; Série X 2a — Registres criminels du Parlement de Paris; Série Y — Châtelet de Paris) and presents a micro-historical work.

The heroes of the stories collected here were the simplest townsfolk who were almost never mentioned in the chronicles, theological and didactic treatises or in the fiction literature. They could get into the view of a historian, only if they were involved in various crimes and the judges began to be interested in them. The records of the criminal investigations, which were carefully conducted in the French Kingdom for many centuries, allow partly to penetrate the secrets of its inhabitants, to hear how they talked about the most intimate moments of their existence, to know what they believed permissible to discuss publicly, and what they didn’t, to understand what legal and cultural ideas they were guided by.

Thus, the study begins with the problem of the admissibility of public discussion of the details of private and intimate life, from the point of view of the people of the Middle Ages. The author raises the question whether such a topic was an absolute taboo for them or whether there could be some circumstances which could allow such a conversation. How controversial were the opinions on this issue among enlightened intellectuals and ordinary people, as well as how it was covered in the sources of various genres. Finally, what was considered possible by applicants and defendants, as well as their witnesses, to tell in the court of law, to what details they paid special attention, what they tried to hide from the audience and what goals they pursued in their confessions.

The analysis of the legal norms that guided the people of the Middle Ages and of the Modern Times in solving their private problems is no less important for the author. She studies what actions these individuals considered as the sexual crimes and what measures to combat them the French society provided; how the ordinary citizens combined in their consciousness the belief in the practice of mob justice and in the official judicial control over their private lives; and how this belief was connected with the understanding of honor and dignity of the particular men and women.

Finally, the author analysed in detail the traditional idea about the role of the local custom in resolving disputes concerning private and intimate life of the French which was common in the Kingdom not only in the Middle Ages and in the early Modern Times, but also in a much later period. That was a custom which had nothing to do with the King’s law or with the written law used in particular provinces, but along with that was an unwritten norm, which was used primarily in the criminal proceedings.

In this general cultural and legal background of the people of the Middle Ages and of the Modern Times were analysed the particular stories of their lives which had been saved for us in the judicial records, as well as (in rare cases) in some other texts: chronicles, personal memoirs and correspondence, pamphlets, theological and didactic writings, Church documents and the statutes of the artisan corporations. Each chapter of the second and third parts of the book is a story about a certain court case, most often associated with a certain type of crime — sodomy, prostitution, adultery, verbal abuse, fraud, murder, etc.

But the main emphasis of this analysis was not to make clearer the legal implications of all these numerous atrocities, some of which the medieval and modern lawyers, to tell the truth, were occasionally unable to define precisely. Much more attention is paid here to the heroes of these stories — to their personal experiences, to their complex relationships, to their feelings for each other, to their attempts to become — or at least to seem — loved, lucky and, after all, happy. The way they talked about their private and intimate lives within the walls of judicial court, what they wanted to pay maximum attention to, what tricks they used in order to justify their actions — that’s what is at the center of this study.