Abstracts
Abstract
This article explores the significant role laypeople played in the early modern post-mortem process in eighteenth-century England, focusing on their sensory engagement with the deceased. Using knowledge drawn from personal experience, family lore, and self-help manuals on home “physick,” laypeople used their sensory understanding of bodies in sickness and health to help determine a cause of death. By investigating how sensory knowledge shaped the interpretation of death, this article explores how laypeople’s tactile and visual interactions with the body influenced the judicial process. This study underscores how lay knowledge informed the legal system’s inquiries into death, and how lay sensory experience and expertise played pivotal roles in early modern judicial conclusions.
Keywords:
- Medical Knowledge,
- Legal Medicine,
- Popular Medicine,
- Homicide,
- Criminal Trial,
- Coronial Inquest
Résumé
Le présent article examine le rôle important des profanes dans le processus post mortem au xviiie siècle en Angleterre, en se concentrant sur leur rapport sensoriel avec les défunts. En s’appuyant sur leur expérience personnelle, des traditions familiales et des manuels de médecine domestique, les profanes utilisaient leur compréhension sensorielle des corps sains et malades pour déterminer la cause d’une mort. En examinant comment les connaissances sensorielles ont façonné l’interprétation de la mort, cet article explore la manière dont le contact tactile et visuel des profanes avec le corps a influencé le processus judiciaire. Cette étude montre comment les connaissances profanes ont éclairé les enquêtes post mortem du système judiciaire et dans quelle mesure l’expérience et le savoir-faire sensoriels des profanes ont joué un rôle crucial dans les décisions judiciaires au début de l’époque moderne.
Mots-clés :
- Savoir médical,
- Médecine légale,
- Médecine populaire,
- Homicide,
- Procès pénal,
- Enquête du coroner
Appendices
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