ABSTRACT
Prior to the modern age, crime and criminal behaviour in Europe was mainly explained for over a thousand years by spiritual notions. The influential theologian St Thomas Aquinas had argued that there is a God-given ‘natural law’ revealed by observing – through the eyes of faith – the natural tendency of people to do good rather than evil. Thus, a vast number of property crimes came to be punished by death in accordance with a body of legislation enacted during that period and which later came to be known as ‘the bloody code’. Crime includes many different activities such as theft, fraud, robbery, corruption, assault, rape and murder. The simplest way of defining crime is that it is an act which contravenes the criminal law. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
