Fields Fens and Felonies

<p>A new work on Crime and Punishment in East Anglia (and elsewhere) during the eighteenth century. It was a time of highwaymen footpads and desperate petty offenders draconian penalties extremes of wealth and poverty corruption and rough and emerging forms of justice. The contents include justices of the peace policing crimes courts and judges as well as such matters as summary trial and disposal jury trial execution (and reprieve) a variety of offences including murder (and other homicides) violence and sexual offences smuggling poaching property crimes riots and disturbances. The book also looks at the various hierarchies that existed whether social legal judicial religious military or otherwise so as to exert a variety of social controls at a time of relative lawlessness. A fascinating and statistically absorbing account of crimes responses and penal outcomes of the era. Neither a micro-history in the context of a parish hundred or small town nor national account but a more unusual criminal justice history of a major English region with its own correlation with London and the rest of England in addition to its local differences and ‘quirks’. <br /> </p>