portrait of a criminal «deserving death penalty» («hard childhood», «bad upbringing», «bad temper», «indecent behavior»).
Nonetheless, as the author shows, the most effective ways to create a semblance of a terrible crime — discovered by very competent judges who passed a just sentence well-deserved by the guilty persons — was to use the most simple explanatory forms — the folklore ones — while formulating both the indictment, the confession of the accused and the sentence. It could well be a kind of play up with the notions of «good» or «evil» witch (the idea of Vladimir Propp worked out by Carlo Ginzburg on the basis of medieval witch trials); a description of an initiation ceremony (as in the trial of Giles de Rais); use of the Biblical analogies (as in the case of Joan of Arc accused of sorcery and prostitution). The indictment thus constructed and formulated was more easily accepted and remembered by the people who thought it the only possible and right interpretation of the event.
Chapter 5 of the book, «Mad Marion», deals with one of the witch trials of the end of the 14th century described in the «Registre criminel du Châtelet de Paris» — the case of the already known Marion la Droiturière and her elder friend Margot de la Barre. The author notes the lack of any inadequate survey of the early French witch trials and also indicates the historians' tendency to attribute the specific and particular perception of a witch common in 16th — 17th centuries to an earlier period. The lack of a definite stereotype of a witch in the end of the 14th century allowes the author to notice the traces of an earlier tradition in the perception of a witch and to bring to light the principles of exclusion of an individual (women first of all) from the society in medieval France. The subjects of madness, illicit love affairs (concubinage), prostitution, sorcery to which the judges then started to add the charges of witchcraft were the most noteworthy and important in this respect.
The chapter also deals with the special position of Aleaume Cachemarée, the compiler of the «Registre». The analysis of his presentation of this case led the author to the conclusion of his dual attitude towards the «heroines» of this trial whom he could not fully consider as «real», «bad» witches. The details of the trial were intentionally (or subconsciously) put down in a form of a fairy tale with the main theme of a difficult goal and its achievement and realization (with the help of a «good» witch). These facts cast a shadow of doubt upon Carlo Ginzburg's theory that in the analyzed period the stereotype of a «bad» witch was already in use everywhere and also that the judges used another fairy-tale scheme to present the information about witch trials; namely, the scheme of struggle with an enemy and victory over him.
Another, no less interesting variant of presentation of accusation of witchcraft is studied in Chapter 6 of the book, «The Harlot and the City». This chapter deals with the analysis of one of the charges brought against Joan of Arc at her trial in 1431 — the charge with prostitution. The author tries to find out whence this charge appeared in the libelle d'Estivet, on what sources it could have been based and how the articles of prostitution were connected with the other articles in the libelle d'Estivet and for what purpose they had been included into it.
Having analyzed the libelle in whole (such analysis had not yet been done by any expert in études johanniques), the author comes to the conclusion that this charge of prostitution logically was followed by the charge of witchcraft and sorcery. The idea of possible connection between prostitution and witchcraft had been already well developed in the 13th century and was further worked out in legal cases and in the treatises of demonologists in the 14th — 15th centuries. Not only the French judicial practice but similar cases in Switzerland prove that. A woman known for her indecent behavior (a prostitute, a concubine, a whore) could be accused of witchcraft more easily than the others. The charge of prostitution was also connected with the military career of the heroine; first of all, with the lift of the siege of Orleans in May 1429. Presenting Joan as a prostitute the judges were trying to prove that her victory at Orleans had been achieved unlawfully. To prove the charge of prostitution the judges used the Biblical notion of the harlot and the city. Most probably, they used Judith as a prototype, since the attitude towards Judith in the Middle Ages was ambiguous.
The author believes that in the case of Joan of Arc, which is considered a model church trial, there were two accusations falling exclusively under the jurisdiction of secular court — that of prostitution and witchcraft (which in France from the end of the 14th century was already considered a secular crime). This fact together with many legal procedures being violated during the trial led the author to the conclusion that the judges had originally planned two trials of Joan of Arc — a church trial and a secular one. And it was during the latter that they intended to use the two accusations of witchcraft and of prostitution. The first was intended to cast doubts upon legitimacy of dauphin Charles' claims to the throne of France since he had relied on the help of a common witch and, hence, his power was received not from God but from the Devil's accomplice and could not be considered legitimate. The second accusation would be further developed and worsened into a most serious secular one to be brought against Joan — the accusation of waging an unjust war. Thus, the accusation of sorcery and witchcraft was important for the Rouen judges not only per se — it was intended to be an instrument in carrying out a more significant, political project aimed at discrediting Charles VII and the royal power in France.
In Chapter 7, «The Tale of Bluebeard», the author analyses the criminal trial of Gilles de Rais, the Baron of Bretagne and the Marshal of France (who was charged with heresy, witchcraft, alchemy, and the abduction and murder of numerous children) and the attitudes towards this person of his contemporaries and present-day public. As the author notices, many still believe that Gilles de Rais was the prototype of the main hero of Charles Perrault' fairy-tale «Bluebeard».
The author attempts to prove that the charges against Gilles de Rais were prepared with the use of folklore prosecutive scheme describing the initiation rites. She also shows that the same scheme was and is now used in the assessment of this trial of Gilles de Rais starting with the mid-15th century and remaining practically the same till today. Gilles de Rais is still believed to be guilty of murder; only his victims differ: in the court materials they were young boys; pregnant women and newly born infants in the chronicles of Jean Chartier and Enguerrand Monstrelet; wives of Bluebeard in the fairy-tale of Charles Perrault, not mentioning Jean Bodin who described Gilles de Rais as a middle-wife (that is as a witch) and thus speaks of him as of a woman.
In author's opinion, the trial of Gilles de Rais was artfully constructed by his judges. Their use of the most simple explanative concept made the contemporaries believe in his culpability and afterwards even think him to be the same Bluebeard, the tale of whom also described the initiation rites. Such simple explanative schemes, the author believes, are most memorable. It is they that create a tradition of attitude towards a person in history and eventually become the «historical truth».
All these chapters deal with the problem of medieval witchcraft whose very existence was not so easy to prove at the court. The use of the folklore explanatory schemes could be the most appreciable and the most successful here. Yet not just the most incredible criminal accusations could be based on such analogies. Chapter 8, «The Salmon's Choice», deals with another such «ready-made» form that was used with to help the compiler of the «Registre criminel du Châtelet de Paris», Alaume Cachemarée, to express his views apropos of one of the most important judicial question of his time, the question of the forced conversion of the Jews.
The chapter focuses on the trial of Salmon, a Spanish Jew from Barcelona, convicted of theft and executed in 1390. The unusual feature in the case, which has attracted the attention of the author, is the non-standard «offer» made by the royal judges to the accused: he could be converted to Christianity or remain a Jew and die a torturous «Jewish death» (hanged by the feet, together with two live dogs by his side). What did the judges try to achieve by their strange proposition to Salmon? How should one explain the decision of the accused to be converted just before his death? What specific features of criminal legal proceedings did Alaume Cachemarée try to illustrate by this case? These are but a few questions posed in this chapter.
The study of the economic and legal conditions of the Jewish community in the late 14th-century France, the mixed JudeoChristian character of conceptions in the sphere of legal proceedings, and the specific features of the legal institute of the «Jewish death», as well as the main principles of the French legal procedure, allows the author to speak of the uniqueness of Salmon's case in the legal practice of the time. The direct contradiction of the judges' verdict with the Royal Ordinance banning forced conversion to Christianity makes the very appearance of the case of Salmon or, at least, its outcome rather doubtful.
One of the possible variants of the interpretation of the case suggested by the author is an analysis of possible