Disfigurement, Authority and the Law

Skinner, Patricia

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-54439-1_3

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…35 We have already seen that early medieval lawcodes contained detailed clauses about injuries to the head and face. 36 When looking specifically for medical practice in the laws, it is striking just how many references to medical practice and medics there are. These can be broken down into earlier regulation of medical practice, and the evidence for doctors being called in to treat illegally-inflicted wounds and/or attest to their severity.…”

Section: Healing In Action?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Paths to Rehabilitation? The Possibilities of Treatment

Skinner

2016

Living With Disfigurement in Early Medieval Europe

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Section: Healing In Action?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Paths to Rehabilitation? The Possibilities of Treatment

Skinner

2016

Living With Disfigurement in Early Medieval Europe

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“…Let us remind ourselves again of Cnut's law: an adulterous woman, he says, shall become "a public disgrace" and lose her nose and ears. 56 But the publicity of the case, and the supposed intervention of royal justice and/or the local bishop who was to "judge sternly" if her attempt at exculpation failed, clearly had the potential not only to disgrace the woman herself, but also her husband, whose position as cuckold would have been exposed by any proceedings. The fact that he was to receive all that his wife owned seems to be related to the compensation culture that accompanied other laws.…”

Section: Women Honor and Facementioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is, predictably enough, a doublestandard at work here, for previous clauses of the code, dealing with male adulterers, fornicators, rapists and men committing incest, are punished by compensation and fines (in contrast to earlier Byzantine law on the same topics). 57 Not only did she lose her own reputation and status, but she damaged her husband's reputation and standing as well (although we have to wait till the later Middle Ages to engage with the figure of the "cuckold", so prominent and so targeted in early modern culture). 58 And this, I suggest, is why her own, physical, face was seen as a legitimate target for punishment.…”

Section: Women Honor and Facementioning

confidence: 99%

Defacing Women: The Gendering of Disfigurement

Skinner

2016

Living With Disfigurement in Early Medieval Europe

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The discussion of disfigurement in early medieval Europe has so far mostly explored cases of men becoming disfigured. This reflects one of the clear findings to emerge from the sample of over 400 instances found in the legal and narrative sources before 1200: that men make up the vast majority of cases documented, whether as victims or perpetrators of the disfiguring injuries. The minority sample of women, however, is itself interesting in that the type or form of the disfigurement they suffer as victims frequently differs from that experienced by men. For a start, almost all the cases of female disfigurement center around some perceived sexual betrayal. This may-in the written reports at least-reflect the concerns of the biblical stories that, I have suggested, underpin the ways in which medieval clerics, the authors of almost all our written material, made sense of and presented their accounts of disfigurements. Women were, in this epistemological framework, the second and secondary sex. They were not-in theory at least-permitted to have authority over men, to teach, to stray beyond their allotted role of obedient daughters, wives and mothers. In some legal codes, they had no separate legal personality from their male relatives, but were under the latters' protection. Their bodies, whether viewed through a religious or a medical lens, were weaker, colder, impaired versions of the male ideal. 1 Eve's betrayal of Adam had left women with an insuperable This chapter further develops points made at the conference European Perspectives on Cultures of Violence, held at Leicester University in June 2013.

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“…Psellos is in fact a useful barometer, reflecting on the right and wrong times to use blinding and disfigurement, and his extended description of nose-cutting as a practice of the "Scythians," not of cultured, Byzantine society, reflects the theme of facial violence as done by Others. 21 Many of the examples he describes, however, evoke sympathy for the victims, most apparently in an extended episode in which he is a direct eyewitness. 22 The scene is the downfall of Emperor Michael V and the nobilissimos Constantine (brother of John Orphanotrophos), who sought refuge from the mob in the Studite monastery.…”

Section: Case Study: Byzantine Staringmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The parading of a traitor through the Agora is repeated soon afterwards in another case, but Alexius only "pretended he wished to blind Gregory," settling instead for his hair and beard to be "shaved to the skin" before displaying him. 37 The public parading of enemies and criminals, of course, was nothing new: there are plenty of earlier examples (including the exhibition of the antipope Pope John XVI), 38 and so when the educated Anna was looking for inspiration for her reports, it is not unlikely that she found examples to imitate.…”

Section: Case Study: Byzantine Staringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways of Seeing: Staring at and Representing Disfigurement

Skinner

2016

Living With Disfigurement in Early Medieval Europe

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Vision lies at the heart of all medieval responses to disfigurement and difference: modern campaigners for facial equality argue that whilst the visual impact of a different face might be unavoidable, a negative response is almost always conditioned by socialization, that is, prejudice is learned, not inborn. A child growing up with visibly-different parents may realize that difference quite early in life, but will not make value judgments until it witnesses the responses of peers and/or their parents. In medieval culture, the assumption that a disfigured or scarred face might be seen and cause shame underpins the compensation demanded of the perpetrator of the injury (payments which, as we have seen, might continue long after the actual injury itself). The flipside, the exhibition of the judiciallymarked, did not work without an audience to understand the meaning of such marking. Yet the potential for sympathy, rather than derision, from onlookers suggests that the meaning of such marking was far from stable. It clearly motivated some rulers, for example, to disfigure and then seclude their "treacherous" subjects. The visible bramble scratch on the face singled out Helmstan as a cattle rustler, a branded face marked the repeat Lombard thief, noseless hostages were a sign of Cnut's ruthlessness. But difference might also attract attention because of attempts to conceal it: Notker the Stammerer tells the strange tale of a young man who, ashamed of his red hair and lacking a cap to cover it, attended Mass balancing one of his boots on top of his head. The bishop, annoyed at the lack of respect inherent in not removing headgear in church (and this is Notker's point

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Disfigurement, Authority and the Law

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Paths to Rehabilitation? The Possibilities of Treatment

Paths to Rehabilitation? The Possibilities of Treatment

Defacing Women: The Gendering of Disfigurement

Ways of Seeing: Staring at and Representing Disfigurement

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