Political crime in early modern Europe: Assassination, legal responses and popular print media

Abstract

The article explores two prospective fields within the burgeoning history of crime: the various responses of early modern legal systems in Europe to violent political crimes such as assassination and regicide and their representation in popular print media, notably in illustrated broadsheets and pamphlets. The early modern era can be characterised as an incubation period of ‘modern’ political crime with regard to its phenomenology and its manifestations as well as concerning the conceptualisation in penal law and the actual practice of criminal justice. The case study of assassination attempts and their representation in illustrated broadsheets demonstrates that the developments of political crime, legal responses and popular print are strongly interconnected and created the modern narrative and image of political crime, which evolved from a national issue to a transnational European discourse. Hence, public punishment and popular print media constituted an integral part of the legal responses to political violence and dissidence by communicating the states interpretation of political crime, the damnatio memoriae and obliteration of the perpetrator and his motivation as well the appropriate just legal responses of the legal authorities.