"Did Knives and Forks Cut Murders?" The NY Times on murder rates through history

[friendly_iconoclast]

Found this via BoingBoing, where they are reposting some of their greatest hits:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/03/arts/did-knives-forks-cut-murders-counting-backward-historians-resurrect-crime.html

Did Knives and Forks Cut Murders?; Counting Backward, Historians Resurrect Crime Statistics And Find the Middle Ages More Violent Than Now
By ALEXANDER STILLE
Published: May 3, 2003

In 1939, at one of civilization's lowest points, a little-known Swiss sociologist, Norbert Elias, published a book called ''Über den Prozess der Zivilisation'' (''On the Civilizing Process'') with a strange and unlikely thesis: that the gradual introduction of courtly manners -- from eating with a knife and fork and using a handkerchief to not spitting or urinating in public -- had played a major part in transforming a violent medieval society into a more peaceful modern one.....

......''The Elias theory got revived through the statistical approach to history,'' said Elizabeth Cohen, a historian at York University in Toronto who has written extensively on crime in Renaissance Italy.

Although there were no national statistics centuries ago, some historians discovered that the archives of some English counties were intact back to the 13th century. So in the 1970's they began diligently counting indictments and comparing them with estimated population levels to get a rough idea of medieval and early modern crime rates. Historians in Continental Europe followed suit and came up with findings that yielded the same surprising result: that murder was much more common in the Middle Ages than it is now and that it dropped precipitately in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Something very important changed in Western behavior and attitudes, and it stood much prevailing social theory on its head. ''It was very surprising because social theory told us that the opposite was supposed to happen: that crime was supposed to go up as family and community bonds in rural society broke up and industrialization and urbanization took hold,'' said Eric H. Monkkonen, a professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles and the author of several works on the history of criminality. ''The notion that crime and cities go together made emotional sense, particularly in America, where at least recently crime is higher in cities.''

Some scholars argue that many of the prevailing theories about why crime rises and falls could be further upended as scholars use new computer models to estimate population figures for past eras more accurately. ''With modern computing we may end up with some very good estimates in the homicide rates in many nations right back to the 17th and 16th centuries,'' said Randall Roth, a historian at Ohio State University who has recalculated murder rates for the 15th and 16th centuries in many countries. ''The data we are getting doesn't line up with most theories of either liberals or conservatives about crime. The theory that crime is determined by deterrence and law enforcement, by income inequality, by a high proportion of young men in a population, by the availability of weapons, by cities, most of those theories end up being wrong.''.....

[57_TomCat]

1. That is truly interesting. N/T

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. Note that this happened while firearms were becoming more common.

However, I wouldn't argue that coincidence equals causation.

[Better Today]

3. One concern jumps out at me right away. How do we know that the superstitions

and general medical ignorance of the times didn't cause the numbers for murders to be artificially high?

[Posteritatis]

4. You can find "Bob killed George with an axe twixt the eyes" records astonishingly far back. (nt)

[Better Today]

5. I'm not saying none are that clear cut, but I'm wondering about the overall

potential for superstitions, religious dogma, and general ignorance may have effected the statistics of what was considered murder. Have you read somewhere in the article that the causes of death were clearly stated in an educated way? I'm just thinking perhaps the data says, "murder" rather than "axe through head". As I say it's a curiosity for me, not suggesting I know the answer at this time or will ever know it.

[Posteritatis]

6. I can't see them affecting it enough to really change the rates

Depending on the time and place, it was often harder for something to constitute murder than it is now. There was a lot less "we're assuming this guy killed this guy via witchcraft!" going on then than people these days tend to assume, though those accusations were often followed by a number of murders.

I didn't see anything in this specific article, but I have come across figures doing historical reading in the past here and there that point to vastly higher, unambiguous homicide rates (by our definition or theirs) in times like the medieval period. Legal historians can find all sorts of things along those lines. It was an incredibly violent era at all levels compared to what we're used to.

[SteveM]

9. As are the detailed records of deaths due to Bubonic plague. nt

[old mark]

7. The reason table knives traditionally have rounded ends is interesting, too...

The nobility in England carried their own general purpose knives everywhere, and used them to eat at the local Earl(Or whoever)'s table. The drink had been watered wine, but with the introduction of brandy and later gin, many of these gatherings of "nobles" became bloody brawls, leading to the custom of the host providing round-tipped knives for their guests - so they would not kill each other, spoiling the feast.

mark

[SteveM]

8. Not bad for the NYT. Now, if they own up to some other criminal acts...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/books/review/Byrd-t.html?_r=1

"She is properly amused (as a Chicagoan) when The New York Times, in 1863, installed a Gatling gun on its roof to drive away a mob of draft protesters."

The reviewer of the biography about Gatling has the usual requisite sexual symbolism reference about the gun (Size? Multiplex?), but did properly cite this "lapse" in the Times. I recommend the book especially for its continuous reference to the operations of U.S. Patent Office, which is seen as one of the most important influences in this country's rise to an industrial giant.

[cleanhippie]

10. Interesting.

[Bold Lib]

11. very