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Podcast: New Books in Law
Episode: Jennifer Lillian Lodine-Chaffey, "A Weak Woman in a Strong Battle: Women and Public Execution in Early Modern England" (U Alabama Press, 2022)
Description: Content Warning: discussion of execution gets a bit gruesome. Jennifer Lodine-Chaffey, A Weak Woman in a Strong Battle: Women and Public Execution in Early Modern England (University of Alabama Press, 2022) provides a new perspective on the representations of women on the scaffold, focusing on how female victims and those writing about them constructed meaning from the ritual. A significant part of the execution spectacle-one used to assess the victim's proper acceptance of death and godly repentance-was the final speech offered at the foot of the gallows or before the pyre. To ensure that their words on the scaf...