engleski

On cutting off noses and pulling out beards: Face as a medium of crime and punishment in medieval Dubrovnik

The history of criminality has paid a not negligible attention to punishment as a sort of social message which is sent in many ways, one of them being to use the body of the convicted (branding the mark on the face, mutilation, etc.). By analysing criminal cases tried in medieval Dubrovnik, as well as comparative material from other European areas, the author addresses the inverse question, i.e., in which way the body of the victim was used by the offender to convey an ‘encrypted message’ to their social surrounding. Two most striking examples were the abscission of the nose on women, and beard on men.

Dubrovnik, Middle Ages, crime, punishment, body, simbolism

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