The Criminal Body Between Reconciliation and Exclusion in Late Medieval Flanders

From pillories to post mortem displays, many punitive rituals in late medieval Flanders centered on the body of the condemned. However, the role that body played was neither simple nor static, and shaming spectacles emphasized both Christian mercy and objectification. Ceremonial elements of reconciliation and exclusion overlapped in these rituals and ultimately reconfigured at the end of the Middle Ages as public punishment eclipsed private peace.

Dr. Mireille J. Pardon is a social and cultural historian interested in violence, social control, and judicial ritual in late medieval and early modern Europe. She graduated from Yale University with a Ph.D. in History in 2020 and spent 2017–2018 at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven as a Visiting International Scholar funded by a Belgian American Educational Foundation fellowship. Her dissertation investigated the changing perception of lethal violence in fifteenth-century Flemish cities and its effects on judicial practice. She is currently working on a book project, tentatively titled The Invention of Homicide: Crime, Honor, and Spectacular Justice in Late Medieval Flanders. In addition to her book project, she is interested in how medieval legal systems interacted with non-human animals, the environment, and the boundaries of (in)humanity, as well as how broader concepts of gender and sexuality impacted legal culture.

At Berea College, she teaches courses on the medieval world, from travel and translation to crime and confession. She is especially interested in showing students the diversity of medieval society and helping them develop their research and writing skills.

Co-sponsored by The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Humanities Institute.