Intentionality and insanity: what the eighteenth-century juror heard

The quintessential importance of intentionality was made abundantly clear in one of the few judicial instructions to the jury which the Old Bailey Sessions Papers (OBSP) reports in detail: the trial of John Bellingham for the murder of Spencer Perceval. No reading of the OBSP, no matter which trial or which year one is investigating, can fail to reveal the extent of the judge’s influence on the jury. To appreciate the importance of social setting in the offering and the reception of such specialized medical knowledge, an actual examination of the late eighteenth-century criminal trials is required. The use of medical evidence and sworn medical experts by judicial forums dates to at least the seventeenth century and very likely goes back a good deal further given the existence of opinions on impotence, premature births, and insanity in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian.