Criminal Bodies

Abstract

This chapter examines historic views on the potency, power and agency of the living criminal body in the early modern and modern periods as a way of understanding the potency of the criminal corpse. The main section of the chapter focuses on the witch as the most powerful of living criminal bodies. There is discussion on phrenological interpretations of criminality and the work of Cesare Lombroso on the 'born criminal'. The meaning of cruentation, or the ordeal by bleeding corpse, is also explored. Keywords Witch · Phrenology · Humours · Bleeding corpse LombrosoIn the medieval and early modern period, it was widely thought that God left his imprints on all living things, and it was an aspect of natural magic for humans to try and interpret their meaning to understand better the world He had created. With regard to human bodies, this meant that the lines on the hand, the wrinkles on the forehead, the shape of the nose, the colour of hair, the number of moles and other visible bodily features, signified how God moulded each person and imbued him or her with an individual character, identity and destiny. This art or science of physiognomy drew on concepts from the ancient world that expounded all-encompassing theories regarding the interconnectedness Criminal Bodies

In search of traces of the mandrake myth: the historical, and ethnobotanical roots of its vernacular names

“…The belief that the mandrake grew under the gallows from the semen of hanged victims [ 142 , 195 :59–60] was first recorded in 1532 by the physician and botanist Otto Brunfels (1488–1534) and later became widespread in European medical literature during the seventeenth century [ 142 , 201 :121–122]. However, the gallows mandrake tradition was strongest in German lands [ 195 : 60]. Talley [ 74 : 166–168] relates the legend that mandrakes come from the urine or semen of a thief hanged on the gallows to sacrificial rites and myths of pre-Christian Germanic people.…”

“…The notorious hand of glory is known in French as the main de gloire , which is thought to be a corruption of the French for mandrake: mandragore . There is an obvious shared association with the gallows corpse [ 195 : 62]. The myth arose among thieves and illiterate persons during the Middle Ages in France through a misunderstanding of words, mandragore , the French term for the mandragora or mandrake, being mistaken for main de gloire .…”

“…The question is, what happened with the story from the third c. BCE to the fifteenth c. AD? The semen and urine of a hanged thief in connection with the mandrake legend is relatively late, entering written sources only about 1500 [ 195 : 59–60]; one name in German ([“Prometheus plant”]) and the English name “herb of Prometheus” retain this old myth.…”