Trevor Dean. Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. Pp. ix, 226. $99.00

Studying the history of crime in medieval Italy poses problems that are less apparent in countries with royal governments where the judicial system was more centralized and the standards for what constituted a crime were more generally accepted. Italy, with its many cities and city-states and its varying types of government and law enforcement procedures, presents a considerable challenge. Trevor Dean has undertaken to write a broad survey suggesting various sources that are available for the study of crime and providing examples of the complexity of interpreting these sources.

Dean's first chapter begins with a discussion of trial records and the way that historians narrate the sources. One of the valuable contributions of this chapter is that Italian historians and their interpretation of trial records are included in the discussion of medieval crime. Chapter one concludes with an overview...