Thompson's Use Of Violence Analysis

Throughout our class we have discussed how violence has shaped the early modern world. One common thread between our sources has been the prevalence and the severity of the violence in the early modern world. While there are various reasons for this violence, the extent to which this violence occurs is a major theme throughout the sources. This violence can take numerous forms, whether it be violence to exploit workers, war, or even violence in the homes of early modern Europeans violence was a major part of the Europeans societies described by our readings and films.

Susan Amussen’s article, “Punishment, Discipline, and Power” describes how violence worked to further social structures within early modern Britain. She describes a British society

Thompson’s “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd” explores the use of violence as a means to establish and maintain order through food riots. At times when there was a poor harvest, prices for food would rise resulting in riots and violence from the peasants in order to maintain the status quo. Like in Linebaugh and Rediker as well as Amussen, Thompson describes the use of violence as a means for society to maintain order. Rather than maintain lawfulness, as in Amussen, or maintain working, as in Linebaugh and Rediker, Thompson’s depiction of English society seems to use violence to maintain fair prices for bread in their economy. Without the riots, there would be no fair price set for bread, and thus the moral economy that Thompson argues existed is no more. Thompson argues against the idea that the bread riots were simply hungry peasants getting together for food, but rather that they expressed a way in which the moral economy regulated itself. While Thompson’s article does give some insight into the purpose of violence, it does not describe the same ubiquity of violence found in either Amussen or Linebaugh and Rediker. According to Thompson, riots were generally rarer than the daily violence found in previous sources. Thompson’s argument that violence was to regulate this moral economy backs up the point that violence was used for maintaining some sort of social structure within their society. Thus, according to Thompson, violence was a key part of

Specifically, the violence against the Anabaptists shows the ubiquity and the severity of violence in the society that Wallace describes. Wallace describes 600 Anabaptists being murdered due to their differing views on Christianity. In Wallace’s depiction of early modern Europe, this was not a one time thing. Fueled by differences between religious groups, various wars were fought, and violence dealt to those who practiced a different religion. Wallace also describes the creation of the Spanish Inquisition which he defines as being made up of “a devout piety, a rigid sense of purity, and Castilian military.” Wallace argues that the Inquisition used violence to maintain their correct version of Christianity and killed 2,000 people to do so. This further demonstrates the ubiquity of violence in the Wallace’s description of early modern Europe and also demonstrates the use of this violence to maintain a social order (as was the case with previous