ABSTRACT

Deviance is behavior that violates or challenges social norms, and historians studying deviance usually focus their attention on either the process through which deviance is defined or those individuals or groups considered to be outcasts from society. Depending on the particular historical setting, strangers, beggars, prostitutes, unattached women, witches, tramps, religious and political dissenters, lepers, or any number of others might be termed “deviant.” Moreover, behavior considered to be “normal” during one era might be identified as “deviant” during another era. In short, no behavior is intrinsically deviant. Rather, such a label is conferred upon activities or individuals by the community or by elements of the community. When society changes, definitions of deviance often change as well. Thus, historians study deviance in order to understand social, political, and cultural development, including accepted norms as well as the mechanisms set up to handle reproved behaviors. Records associated with deviance can be widely revealing in social history, particularly in premodern periods.