Henry Charles Lea

This book, published as part four of Henry Charles Lea's 'Superstition and Force', is one of the most succinct accounts in English of the place of torture in the legal process from the Roman Empire to the nineteenth century. His study suggest that torture occupied a far more complex place in the legal sociology of the period between the third and the eighteenth centuries and the revival of torture in the twentieth century raises once again the question of torture's true place in the realms of law. Lea's wide scholarship and meticulous respect for original sources make this study one of the most reliable accounts of the history of torture available in English. -- Publisher description.

Boy bishops, Holy Innocents, child saints, martyrs and prophets, choirboys and choirgirls, orphans, charity-school children, Sunday-school children, privileged children, deprived, exploited and suffering children - all these feature in this exciting collection of over thirty original essays by a team of international scholars. The overall themes are the development of the idea of childhood and the experience of children within Christian society - the often ambiguous role of the child both as passive object of ecclesiastical concern and as active religious subject. The authors consider theological and liturgical issues and the social history of the family, as well as art history, literature and music. In its interdisciplinary scope the work reflects the manifold ways in which children have participated in the life of the Church over the centuries. The subjects under discussion range from the girls of fourth-century Rome to missionary activity in nineteenth-century India; from the unbaptized babies of Byzantium to the Salisbury choirgirls of the 1990s. Adopting a broad, ecumenical approach, the collection includes perspectives on Greeks, Latins, Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans and Dissenters.

Having only made reference to this book for research purposes, I don't feel qualified to comment on the whole work, but I will say that of all the sources I have studied so far, this is the only one that offered me more information about the Inquisitor General of Valladolid, Andres Pacheco than that he was later appointed viceroy of New Spain. It has been very helpful in building a better picture of the character of the man.

Volume 1 of 3.