The Renaissance Body: From Colonisation to Invention

Introduction

“…By the end of the seventeenth century, Jonathan Sawday has argued, a 'crisis in the provision of corpses for the various anatomy schools' was beginning to develop. 97 Though we know very little about the precise number of criminal corpses that were being used by the surgeons at this point, they were clearly not confining themselves to the quotas formally allowed them by the authorities. By the 1690s there is evidence that some of the condemned were selling their bodies to the surgeons before their executions, 98 and in 1700 a foreign observer noted that that if any bodies were left unclaimed by family or friends after an execution they were 'sold to the surgeons to be dissected'.…”

“…In the sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries the surgeons took such a small proportion of the very large number of bodies that died on the gallows that their profile remained extremely low and they experienced very little hostility. 95 However, as the number of felons being executed fell drastically in the mid-to late-seventeenth century, 96 and as the surgeons' increasing needs continued to stimulate the market in corpses, the activities of the surgeons and those they employed to collect the bodies of the condemned from the gallows became more conspicuous and began to draw the anger of the crowd. By the end of the seventeenth century, Jonathan Sawday has argued, a 'crisis in the provision of corpses for the various anatomy schools' was beginning to develop.…”