Becoming Criminal: Transversal Performance and Cultural Dissidence in Early Modern England

ONE: State Power, Cultural Dissidence, Transversal Power

b e g i n n i n g i n sixteenth-century England, a distinct criminal culture of rogues, vagabonds, gypsies, beggars, cony-catchers, cutpurses, and prostitutes emerged and Xourished. This community was self-deWned by the criminal conduct and dissident thought promoted by its members, and oYcially deWned by and against the dominant preconceptions of English cultural normality. In this book I argue that this amalgamated criminal culture, consisting of a diverse population with much racial, ethnic, and etiological ambiguity, was united by its own aesthetic, ideology, language , and lifestyle. In eVect, this criminal culture constituted a subnation that illegitimately occupied material and conceptual space within the English nation. With its own laws and customs, it was both independent of and dependent on England’s oYcial (mainstream) culture. It was selfgoverning but needed the law-abiding populace for food and shelter and as a social entity against which to deWne itself. I also argue that the enduring presence of this criminal culture markedly aVected the oYcial culture ’s aesthetic sensibilities, systems of belief, and socioeconomic organization . It was both conducted by and a conductor for what I call “transversal power.”1 Before describing my “transversal theory” that explains “transversal power” and accounts for the terms, methods, and arguments that drive this study, I want to consider, as a point of entrance, the remarkable resemblance between discussions of the sociohistorical actuality, representation , and inXuence of early modern England’s organized crime and that c h a p t e r o n e State Power, Cultural Dissidence, Transversal Power of today’s Italian-American maWa. Both topics are controversial and important to studies of criminality and sociocultural diVerentiation within their respective periods and geographies, and many of the historiographical issues with which my analysis must contend would also pertain to analysis of the Italian-American maWa. MaWa Presence What do most Americans today really know about the Italian-American maWa? According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the term “maWa” originated in nineteenth-century Sicily, where it was used to describe “the spirit of hostility to the law and its ministers prevailing among a large portion of the population and manifesting itself frequently in vindictive crimes”; today it also refers to “the body of those who share in this anti-legal spirit (often erroneously supposed to constitute an organized secret society existing for criminal purposes).” Ethnicities with distinguishable groups allegedly among this maWa “body” today in the United States include Jews, Russians, Mexicans, Irish, and Italians. However, of these, the Italian maWa receives the most attention in the media. Americans are most familiar with the consistent representation of the criminal operations and culture of the maWa in popular Wlms.2 But do the Wlms constitute adequate evidence for the real-life existence of this maWa? In other words, why do people believe that the maWa exists? Of course, we know more about the maWa than what the Wlms tell us. From printed, broadcasted , televised, and internet news and information sources we know about the crimes allegedly committed by such maWosi as Carlo Gambino, Joseph Colombo, Paul Castellano, and John Gotti. Moreover, supporting references and commentary on the information provided by these sources often surface in popular literature and music.3 If we were to add to our list of possible sources some FBI, police, and court records, as well as testimonies from convicted maWosi, most people would probably agree that we could make a plausible argument for the existence of an ItalianAmerican maWa, especially if the sources corroborated each other and presented a largely cohesive picture. But if there were a scholar writing, say, in the twenty-fourth century, would he or she have ample material for a 2 | b e c o m i n g c r i m i n a l sociohistorical study of the twentieth-century’s Italian-American maWa’s criminality and culture? Even though historical evidence becomes more debatable as time passes, and Wrsthand (eyewitness) accounts based on personal experience become unavailable, this question, I think, calls for a resolute yes. Such an aYrmative response makes sense when considered in light of the implications of this question in regard to the general enterprise of sociohistorical inquiry. Indeed, this response recalls the long-standing debate over the “Wctionality” or relativity of history. According to the OED, history is a narrative , a story, or a chronological record of events. Hence, for a...