Strangers and Misfits ─ Banishment, Social Control, and Authority in Early Modern Germany

What is the best way to keep a society under control? According to the leaders of Ulm in the early modern period, banishment of the malcontents would not only free up jail space but also keep bad influences away from the populace. Coy (history, The College of Charleston) has thoroughly researched the cases of those banished, and notes that magistrates frequently used expulsion to punish and control thousands of offenders. As he examines the role of banishment in sixteenth-century Ulm he uncovers how magistrates consciously used banishment as a threat and as a means of maintaining the social hierarchy as well as a means of keeping the peace and upholding the law. Coy also ably describes the fates of those excluded, the place of moral reform in banishment, public expulsion rituals and the relationship with early modern authority, and the therapeutic role of purgation. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jason Philip Coy, Ph.D. (2001) in History, University of California, Los Angeles, is Assistant Professor of History at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.