The scholarly commons must be developed on public standards

Access to scholarship is becoming ever more dependent on one's (or one's institution's) financial means. Björn Brembs and Guy Geltner argue that one solution to these growing problems is for scholarship to have open, public standards; both for its Web 1.0 tasks, like reading, writing, and citing, but also, crucially, for its Web 2.0 functionalities too. Scholarship is a social endeavour and open, public standards would allow scholars to share, discuss, and reuse knowledge efficiently without being beholden to the whims of the tycoons or startups currently running the most prominent social media platforms. ScholarlyHub aims to make this vision a reality

Élisabeth Lusset, Crime, châtiment et grâce dans les monastères au Moyen Âge (XIIe-XVe s.)

Élisabeth Lusset’s wide-ranging and lucid study of monastic crime, punishment and absolution has much to recommend it to this journal’s readership. Although the book is predominantly a contribution to the history of monastic social and legal history, it marshals abundant evidence regarding deviancy and situates cloistered life within its broader and ever-changing social and cultural contexts, thereby challenging a traditional approach to convents as (proto-)total institutions. Lusset convinci..

Isola non isolata. Le Stinche in the Middle Ages

Il saggio affronta il primo periodo della storia delle Stinche, la prigione del Comune di Firenze istituita intorno al 1300, riservando particolare attenzione al rapporto tra carcerati e tra questi e il mondo esterno. Rispetto ad altri casi, la vita nella prigione fiorentina è ben documentata, ciò che ne consente un’analisi approfondita. I documenti dimostrano che un regime carcerario semi-inclusivo, tipico di questo periodo, riusciva a impedire il completo isolamento sociale dei prigionieri, attenuando loro le sofferenze del carcere. In tale prospettiva, il caso analizzato mostra nell’istituzione della prigione un cambiamento nell’atteggiamento verso la marginalità sociale e religiosa: dall’espulsione al suo contenimento

La prison urbaine

Les prisons municipales ont commencé à parsemer le paysage européen au xiiie siècle. De pair avec l’autonomie politique et avec la centralisation administrative des régimes urbains, la prison est devenue un rouage omniprésent dans la machine des systèmes de justice locale, comme espace de privation de liberté, de coercition ou de punition. Mais le rouleau compresseur étatique a rencontré de sérieux obstacles en raison de l’héritage historique de la prison, qui a modelé à son tour l’institution et sa perception. Cet article explicite cette tension créatrice et souligne son importance en examinant les différentes manières dont les systèmes politiques et les individus ont considéré l’héritage spirituel de la prison.Municipal prisons began to dot the European landscape in the thirteenth century. Hand in hand with urban regimes’ political autonomy and administrative centralization, the prison became a ubiquitous cog in the machinery of local justice Systems, whether as a custodial, coercive, or punitive space. But the juggernaut of the State faced serious obstacles from the prison’s historical pedigree, which in turn shaped the institution and its perception. The present essay explicates this creative tension and underscores its importance by surveying the different ways in which polities and individuals addressed the prison’s spiritual legacy