ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the history of criminals and victims, and explains the courtroom and the medieval discourse. Judicial records explain more about judges and court practice than about criminals and their victims. Female criminality had its own pattern, which avoided homicide and preferred petty theft. Medieval ideas of masculinity are therefore of great relevance to the problem of violence. The governments tried to curtail and restrict gambling, as a major source of fighting. In the same vein, the carrying of bladed weapons was addressed: prohibitions on carrying arms are among the most common pieces of late medieval legislation. The book beings the impression that, while criminality was uniform across Europe, the judicial response to it varied. This might be broadly true in the sense that similar patterns of crime a prevalence of violence over theft have been found in much of pre-industrial, ancienregime Europe.
