Elizabeth Papp Kamali: The Role of Anger in Medieval English Felony Adjudication - a podcast by The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800)

Elizabeth Papp Kamali (University of Michigan): The Devil’s Daughter of Hell Fire: The Role of Anger in Medieval English Felony Adjudication

This paper expands upon my earlier analysis of the meaning of felony, in which I posited that the medieval paradigm of felony was an act that involved deliberation and forethought, the exercise of a person’s reasoning capacity and volition in the absence of necessity, and moral blameworthiness, sometimes rising to the level of evil. Here I grapple with the complications raised by the issue of anger. On the one hand, anger was seen to be a product of an ill-formed conscience. This potentially placed anger within the felonious area of moral blameworthiness. On the other hand, anger in its more extreme manifestations was seen to inhibit a person’s ability to reason and to inspire behavior resembling insanity, thereby possibly pointing toward a partial excuse. Relying on legal records, religious writings, and literature, this paper excavates the understandings of anger that informed jurors’ attitudes toward felony defendants.

Image: The seven bowls of God's wrath, Thesaurus Novi Testamenti elegantissimis iconibus expressus continens historias atque miracula do[mi] ni nostri Iesu ChristIcones Revelationum S Iho[anne]s Evangeliste in Pathmo, 1585, Copyright, The Trustees of the British Museum

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