What is the difference between a stabbing in a tavern in London and one in a hostelry in the South of France? What happens when a spinster living in Paris finds knight in her bedroom wanting to marry her? Why was there a crime wave following the Black Death? From Aberdeen to Cracow and from Stockholm to Sardinia, Trevor Dean ranges widely throughout medieval Europe in this exiting and innovative history of lawlessness and criminal justice. Drawing on the real-life stories of ordinary men and women who often found themselves at the sharp end of the law, he shows how it was often one rule for the rich and another for the poor in a tangled web of judicial corruption.

Trevor Dean is Professor of History at Roehampton University.

List of illustrations ix Preface xi Editor's Preface xiii Abbreviations xv 1. Courts, Crimes and Causes 1 2. Judicial Corruption 30 3. Late Medieval Crime Waves? 47 4. Women and Crime 73 5. Outside the Law? Avengers, Clerics, Students 96 6. Punishment 118 7. Crime in Literature 144 Conclusion 162 Bibliographical note 164 Index