Résumés
Abstract
Across early modern and nineteenth-century Europe it was widely believed that the corpses of executed criminals had thaumaturgical powers that could miraculously cure a range of illnesses if they were touched or ingested. This article looks at how touch was the key sense involved in how the magical powers of the corpses of the condemned could transfer to the living. It argues that these beliefs were linked to a much older belief in relics, which also require physical proximity in order to function effectively. It explores the different traditions around the use of these body parts across Europe, arguing that variations in practices were centred on differing methods of execution in different regions rather than on varying religious beliefs.
Keywords:
- Execution,
- Magic,
- Body Parts,
- Blood,
- Corpses,
- Relics
Résumé
Dans l’Europe des premiers temps modernes et du XIXe siècle, beaucoup pensaient que les cadavres des criminels exécutés possédaient des pouvoirs thaumaturgiques susceptibles de guérir miraculeusement toute une série de maladies une fois touchés ou ingérés. Le présent article examine dans quelle mesure le toucher était le principal sens par lequel les pouvoirs magiques des cadavres des condamnés pouvaient être transférés aux vivants. Il soutient que ces conceptions étaient liées à une croyance beaucoup plus ancienne : celle des reliques, lesquelles nécessitaient également une proximité physique pour fonctionner efficacement. L’article explore les différentes traditions entourant l’utilisation de ces fragments corporels à travers l’Europe, en soutenant que la diversité des pratiques était liée aux variations régionales des pratiques d’exécution, plutôt qu’à des divergences religieuses.
Mots-clés :
- Exécution,
- Magie,
- Membres,
- Sang,
- Cadavres,
- Reliques
Parties annexes
Bibliography
- Folger Library, V.a.697. https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/bib354331-502553.
- Stadtarchiv (StA) Nuremberg, Amts- and Standbücher 226.
- Browne, Edward. A Brief Account of Some Travels in Divers Parts of Europe […]. London: Tooke, 1685.
- Cotugno, Domenico. A Treatise on the Nervous Sciatica, or, Nervous Hip Gout. Translated by Henry Crantz. London: J. Wilkie, 1775.
- “Executed for the Murder of Elizabeth Pitcher.” In The Newgate Calendar, by Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, 145–47. Vols. 3–4. London: J. Robins and Co., 1828.
- “Execution of the ci-devant Duke of Ormond.” Sporting Magazine 1 (February 1793): 295–96.
- “Historical Chronicle, April 1758.” Gentleman’s Magazine 28 (1758): 191–94.
- Laisnel de la Salle, Germain. Croyances et légendes du centre de la France, souvenirs du vieux temps. Vol. 1. Paris: A. Chaix, 1875.
- Le Républicain français, no. 69 (23 January 1793): 275–78. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1608218g.
- Manara, Giacinto. Notti malinconiche, nelle quali con occasione di assistere à condannati à morte. Bologna: Giovanni Battista Ferroni, 1658.
- Meister, Jacques-Henri. Letters Written during a Residence in England. London: Printed for T. N. Longman and O. Reese, 1799.
- Moryson, Fynes. An Itinerary Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Sweitzerland, Netherland, Denmarke, Poland, Italy, Turky, France, England, Scotland and Ireland. London: John Beale, 1617.
- Nalson, John. A True Copy of the Journal of the High Court of Justice, for the Trial of K. Charles I as It Was Read in the House of Commons. London: H. C. for Thomas Dring, 1684.
- Paré, Ambroise. The Workes of That Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey. Translated by Thomas Johnson. London: Thomas Coates and R. Young, 1634.
- Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by John Bostock. London: Taylor and Francis, 1855.
- Scarlatini, Ottavio. L’huomo e sue parti figurato. Vol. 1. Bologna: Giacomo Monti, 1684.
- Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Edited by Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library. Accessed 21 April 2024. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/julius-caesar.
- Shakespeare, William. Othello. Edited by Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library. Accessed 21 April 2024. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library. https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/othello.
- Sneyd, W. “Cure for Wens.” Notes and Queries 6, no. 146 (July–December 1852): 145.
- Thiers, Jean Baptiste. Traité des superstitions. Vol. 1. Paris: Antoine Dezallier, 1679.
- W. W. “Raven Superstition.” Notes and Queries 2, no. 43 (July–December 1856): 325.
- Bloch, Marc. The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France. Translated by J. E. Anderson. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1973. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1w6t8q3.
- Brazinski, Paul, and Allegra Fryxell. “The Smell of Relics: Authenticating Saintly Bones and the Role of Scent in the Sensory Experience of Medieval Christian Veneration.” Papers from the Institute of Archaeology 23, no. 1 (September 2013): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.5334/pia.430.
- Brockliss, Laurence, and Colin Jones. The Medical World of Early Modern France. New York: Clarendon Press, 1997.
- Brogan, Stephen. The Royal Touch in Early Modern England: Politics, Medicine and Sin. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782045106.
- Burke, Jill, and Wilson Poon. “Renaissance Goo: Senses and Materials in Early Modern Apothecary Taxonomies and Soft Matter Science.” Ambix 71, no. 4 (2024): 367–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2024.2419310.
- Camporesi, Piero. The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutation and Mortification in Religion and Folklore. Translated by Tania Croft-Murray. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- Classen, Constance. The Colour of Angels: Cosmology, Gender and the Aesthetic Imagination. London: Routledge, 1998. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203007594.
- Dannenfeldt, Karl H. “Egyptian Mumia: The Sixteenth Century Experience and Debate.” Sixteenth Century Journal 16, no. 2 (Summer 1985): 163–80. https://doi.org/10.2307/2540910.
- Davies, Owen, and Francesca Matteoni. Executing Magic in the Modern Era: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59519-1.
- Davies, Owen, and Francesca Matteoni. “‘A Virtue beyond All Medicine’: The Hanged Man’s Hand, Gallows Tradition and Healing in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England.” Social History of Medicine 28, no. 4 (November 2015): 686–705. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv044.
- Dülmen, Richard van. Theatre of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany. Translated by Elisabeth Neu. Cambridge: Polity, 1990.
- Egmond, Florike. “Execution, Dissection, Pain and Infamy: A Morphological Investigation.” In Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the Human Body in Early Modern European Culture, edited by Florike Egmond and Robert Zwijnenberg, 92–128. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
- Evans, Richard. Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600–1987. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198219682.001.0001.
- Ferrari, Giovanna. “Public Anatomy Lessons and the Carnival: The Anatomy Theatre of Bologna.” Past & Present 117, no. 1 (1987): 50–106. https://doi.org/10.1093/past/117.1.50.
- Fiddyment, Sarah, Natalie J. Goodison, Elma Brenner, Stefania Signorello, Kierri Price, and Matthew J. Collins. “Girding the Loins? Direct Evidence of the Use of a Medieval English Parchment Birthing Girdle from Biomolecular Analysis.” Royal Society Open Science 8, no. 3 (March 2021): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.202055.
- Forth, Christopher E. “Thinking through Fat: The Materiality of Ancient and Modern Stereotypes.” In Fat: Culture and Materiality, edited by Christopher E. Forth and Alison Leitch, 57–74. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
- Gatrell, V. A. C. The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770–1868. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Geisbusch, Jan. “For Your Eyes Only? The Magic Touch of Relics.” In The Power of Touch: Handling Objects in Museum and Heritage Context, edited by Elizabeth Pye, 73–88. New York: Routledge, 2007. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315417455.
- Gentilcore, David. Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450–1800. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
- Gordon-Grube, Karen. “Anthropophagy in Post-Renaissance Europe: The Tradition of Medicinal Cannibalism.” American Anthropologist 90, no. 2 (June 1988): 405–9. https://www.jstor.org/stable/677961.
- Gowing, Laura. Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pzk6gh.
- Harrington, Joel. The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013.
- Harvey, Elizabeth D. “Introduction: The ‘Sense of All Senses.’” In Sensible Flesh: On Touch in Early Modern Culture, edited by Elizabeth D. Harvey, 1–21. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1b4cxqj.3.
- Haskaj, Fatmir. “From Biopower to Necroeconomies: Neoliberalism, Biopower and Death Economies.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 44, no. 10 (December 2018): 1148–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453718772596.
- Howes, David, and Constance Classen. Ways of Sensing: Understanding the Senses in Society. London: Routledge, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315856032.
- Merback, Mitchell B. The Thief, the Cross and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punishment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
- Moshenska, Joe. Feeling Pleasures: The Sense of Touch in Renaissance England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198712947.001.0001.
- Noble, Louise. Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118614.
- Park, Katharine. “The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 1–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/2863109.
- Peacock, Mabel. “Executed Criminals and Folk-Medicine.” Folklore 7, no. 3 (September 1896): 268–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1896.9720365.
- Porret, Michel. “Corps flétri—corps soigné: L’attouchement du bourreau au XVIIIe siècle.” In Le Corps violenté: Du geste à la parole, 103–35. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1998.
- Prosperi, Adriano. Crime and Forgiveness: Christianizing Execution in Medieval Europe. Translated by Jeremy Carden. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv12sdwr5.
- Royer, Katherine. The English Execution Narrative, 1200–1700. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2014.
- Saint Pio Foundation. “Relics of Saint Pio.” Accessed 8 April 2025. https://saintpiofoundation.org/relics-of-saint-pio.
- Shapin, Steven. “‘You Are What You Eat’: Historical Changes in Ideas about Food and Identity.” Historical Research 87, no. 237 (August 2014): 377–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12059.
- Staden, Heinrich von. “Women and Dirt.” Helios 19, no. 1–2 (1992): 7–30.
- Storm, Erica M. “Gilding the Pill: The Sensuous Consumption of Patent Medicines, 1815–1841.” Social History of Medicine 31, no. 1 (February 2017): 41–60. https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkw133.
- Stuart, Kathy. Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496967.
- Sugg, Richard. Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians. London: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315666365.
- Terpstra, Nicholas, ed. The Art of Executing Well: Rituals of Execution in Renaissance Italy. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.5325/j.ctv1c9hnv9.
- Tullett, William. Smell in Eighteenth-Century England: A Social Sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198844136.001.0001.
- Walsham, Alexandra. “Introduction: Relics and Remains.” Past & Present 206, no. S5 (2010): 9–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq026.