‘Criminally Poor?’

Everyday Crime, Criminal Justice and Gender in Early Modern Bologna

“…78 For the criminal justice system it was therefore a practical tool to achieve public order, since it relied less on active surveillance than on the community's willingness to report violations. 79 The precetti became increasingly used throughout the early modern period: in the Bolognese casebooks the share of the peace injunctions increased from around seven per cent of all recorded outcomes of denunciations in 1650 to around 16 per cent in the mid-eighteenth century.…”

“…First, pertaining to the suggested 'localness' of Bolognese property offenders in particular, various studies have asserted that in communities characterised by low migration theft was naturally more commonly committed by non-migrants. 79 For rural Tuscany, Brackett contended that theft was linked to a "common misery of a peasantry that always lived on the edge of survival. "80 The same has been argued for the eighteenth-century Sénéchaussée of Libourne in France, where three quarters of reported thefts involved "the more stable members of local society.…”

“…Angelozzi and Casanova, Donne criminali,230, 259. 138 Gray, 'The regulation of violence in the metropolis,[79][80][81] Angelozzi and Casanova, Donne criminali, 259. 139 Angelozzi and Casanova, Donne criminali,239, 242.…”

“… Ibidem,17,36,79; Terpstra, Cultures of charity, 213; Cavina, Nozze di sangue, 48. 6 Dean and Lowe, 'Writing the history of crime,' 3.…”