Landscapes of Fear

14. Exile and Confinement

14. Exile and. Confinement Complex societies are intricate codes of exchange. Someof these codes are formulated into laws and regulations; most are internalized patterns of behavior that the dominant institutions of society have more or less succeeded in inculcating. Yet a complex society is never immune from the threat of anarchy (or rebellion). Its diversified and stratified population inevitably contains elements which, for different reasons, deviate from the generally accepted norms, or which seek deliberately to subvert them. Madmen do not obey rules of polite behavior. Neither do vagrants and loiterers and, in general, the dispossessed androotless poor. To members of established society, such people are unstable drifters; they have no ties to place, family, and worldly goods. They are seen as violent, ready to commit crimes against property and persons. What does society do with such fringe members? In the past, if they were not violent and had some legitimate means of support , their presence was tolerated. Mental defectives, beggars, vagabonds, and the helpless poor lived in the midst of the respectable and the rich. If people at the fringes ofsocietycommitted a crime, they might be swiftly and harshly punished. We have seen how brutal the exercise of force could be beforemodern times. However, most societies had two other methods for imposing order or forestalling the dangers of internal chaos: exile and confinement. With exile, danger is expelled from the communal body; with confinement, it is isolated in space, thereby rendering it innocuous. In ancient Rome and China, high-class offenders were banished to desert islands and remote provinces where, with the connivance of family and friends, they could live in reasonable Landscapes of Fear 188 comfort. Low-class felons were also banished, but they had to wear chains and perform hard labor.1 In the modern period, transportation was an important type of punishment. From the seventeenth century to the early part of the nineteenth, both England and France dispatched their debtors and felons to the colonies. The general outline of this story is familiar and need not be repeated here. Less familiar is exile at the local level— banishment from the community. What could a community do with inhabitants who were disreputable , jobless, and potentiallya source ofcrime? The answer was that unless such people could demonstrate their membership in the communityby virtue of birth or long residence, they were expelled. Small townsfeared strangers who might become an economic burden and disrupt the tightly knit social order. Cities could afford to be more tolerant, but even a large community wouldbe under pressure to remove its parasitic membersif too many of them congregated. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Paris had a population of 100,000, of whom some 30,000 were beggars. Obviously,no city thus burdened could hope to survive for long. In 1606, a decree of Parlement ordered that the beggars ofParis be whipped in the public square,branded on the shoulder, and driven out. To protect the capital against their return, an ordinance of 1607established companies of archers at all the city gates.2 How is society to cope with its insane? Mad people are those whose minds wander. Without the control of rational minds, their behavior is erratic, either harmlessly adrift or violent. From ancient Greek times to the late medieval period, madmen received—other than medicine of a magical or sacral nature— two basic kinds oftreatment: the violent were chained in private houses and religious institutions; the harmless were lightly supervised and allowed to mingle with the populace. When the insane became too numerous and troublesome, they were ejected from the city and encouraged to drift through the countryside . The step of transporting lunatics farther afield was undertaken between the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth century . City authorities hired sailors and merchants toconduct the mentally confused todistant townswhere theymight in the most literal sense be lost. Naturally, societies would like to be rid of their mad people. When it could be shown that they had come from other places, they were often returned there. Towns in Germany engaged in this practice, as did those in other countries. Howfar were local officials willing to go? The councilors of Nuremberg, between 189 Exile and Confinement 1377 and 1397,dispatched thirteen madmen at public expense to Bamberg, Passau, and Regensburg, and to places as distant as Vienna and Hungary.3 A more kindly act was to put them on boats and send...