Lettres de rémission: Records of Punishing and Pardoning Power

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국서양중세사학회
· 수록지 정보 : 서양중세사연구 / 39호 / 69 ~ 109페이지
· 저자명 : 성백용

초록

Lettres de rémission were neglected by historians for a long time, on account of their weaknesses such as commonplace formality, repetitiveness, and fragmentary features. In particular, doubts on their credibility decisively caused historians to underestimate their value as a historical source. But, despite those somewhat superficial weaknesses, it is difficult to deny that they are the serial source which recorded repetitive events in a fixed form over a long period, and thus allow researchers to adopt a wide variety of statistical approaches. So to speak, they are a medieval version of big data. And they are records of all sorts of people who happened to be brought to justice, and thus unlike any other official letters, hold everyday lives and mentalities of commoners as if caught in snapshots. In addition, these special records of punishment and pardon for crimes reveal intriguing interactions between the authorities and the people. Consequently, the records could have much attraction for not only judicial history but also sociology, anthropology, and folklorism. This article examines new visions and products that these massive records of power brought to social history and history of mentality, especially to the study of the relation between state and society in the Middle Age. Furthermore, it demonstrates how new questions and perspectives of historians could attach ever new values to the records.

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