Il rogo o la forca? Punizioni capitali “di genere” e violenza femminile nei secoli XIII-XIV [The stake or the gallows? “gendered” capital punishments and female violence in the 13th and 14th Century]

Studies on the diversity of capital punishments inflicted on men and women in late medieval Europe have found a prevalence of burning against the latter, as opposed to hanging as a uniquely male punishment. This discrepancy has been explained by some as motivated by the indecency of displaying female corpses; others have rather suggested that women guilty of serious violent acts were associated with the demonic and therefore punished by burning. The contribution aims to re-examine this debate using judicial sources from Italian communes (especially Siena, Florence and Bologna) in the 13th-14th centuries, compared with other European contexts. The analysis will focus in particular on murder and robbery, for which communal statutes normally prescribed capital punishment. The author argues that the types of execution chosen for these crimes depended not so much on the gender of the malefactor, but on the circumstances of the crime committed (in particular, its treacherous elements): however, it is necessary to take into account the cultural bias existing in the Italian communes alongside their normative frameworks.