21st Annual Mellon Colloquium: “The Invention of Homicide: Crime, Honor, and Spectacular Justice in Late Medieval Flanders”

Join the Medieval Institute for its twenty-first annual Mellon Colloquium. The colloquium is a half-day public seminar discussion with the institute’s 2022–23 Mellon Fellow, Prof. Mireille Pardon, Assistant Professor of History, Berea College, on her book-in-progress, joined by three distinguished respondents: Andrew Brown of Massey, Chanelle Delameillure of KU Leuven, and Ellen Kittell of Idaho.

Professor Pardon’s project examines how people thought about homicide in fifteenth-century Flanders, and how changes in the perception of killing over time impacted judicial practice. Medieval reconciliation procedures, a feud-like understanding of violence, and an emphasis on pecuniary penalties declined as spectacular, bodily punishment took center stage. Drawing on the wealth of archival resources for late medieval Flemish cities, her work explores slow cultural shifts in concepts of honor, masculinity, and the common good to give a new perspective on the birth of early modern punitive justice. This event was recorded on April 14, 2023.