3 - Women, Violence and the Uses of Justice Before the Criminal Court of Early Modern Bologna

Summary

In the past decades, there has been a growing scholarly awareness of both women’s roles as protagonists in violent crimes, and their critical roles in litigation communities. This chapter aims to combine these two research strands and examine women’s recourse to the criminal court for everyday violent conflicts in early modern Bologna. Although the denunciations on which this chapter is based were plentiful, they hardly ever led to an inquisitorial process. In the eyes of the authorities, these ‘minor crimes’ were often deemed too unimportant for prosecution, but litigants commonly also had different aims. This chapter scrutinizes the ways in which women were able to strategically and instrumentally make use of the patriarchal criminal justice system in the resolution of their violent conflicts. It will argue that, specifically, the appeal to the precetto de non offendendo – a peace injunction issued through summary justice – granted them not only judicial leverage, but also real agency in the process.