Introduction

1. The Earliest Proponents of Criminalization

The Scholastic Origins of Criminal Abortion

Forms of Sentencing in Medieval Jurisprudence

Crimen in "An Age without Lawyers" (500-1050)

2. Early Venues of Criminalization

Crimen in Sacramental Confession

Judicial Crimen in the Ecclesiastical Courts

Public Penitential Crimen

Royal Jurisdiction in Thirteenth-Century England

3. Chief Agents of Criminalization

Legislation versus Juristic Communis Opinio

Communis Opinio and Peer Dissent

Systematic Law before the Rise of the Modern State

4. Principal Arguments in Favor of Criminalization

Successive Animation and Creatianism

Legal and Theological Assessments of Therapeutic Abortion

The Demise of Late Medieval Embryology

5. Objections to Crimina zation

Customary Indifference North and East of the River Rhine

Rejection in the Royal Courts of England (1327-1557)

6. Abortion Experts and Expertise

Evidence of Midwifery

Medical Embryology and Abortion Discourse

Abortifacient Prescriptions

7. Abortion in the Criminal Courts of the Ius Commune

Criminal Accusationes and Inquisitiones

The Rules and Safeguards of Ordinary Inquisitiones

Extraordinary Inquisitiones

8. Forms of Punishment in the Criminal Courts of the Ius Commune

Statutory and Customary Specifications

Substitute Penalties

Adjustment Out of Court

9. The Frequency of Criminal Prosecutions

Viable Statistical Queries

Geography and Patterns of Record Keeping

A Triad of Typical Cases

Bibliography

Index