Conclusion

Abstract The conclusion sums up ways in which the manslaughter verdict became a useful mechanism for criminalizing homicide, or making murder public, and thus how it might have contributed to the declining incidence of homicide in the period. It surveys the responses to a number of killings by elite men at the end of the period, and how these responses show signs of the broader changes under discussion in the book. It ends with a brief summary of the political aspects of homicide and its prosecution, and addresses how talk of murder as an offence against a collectivity beyond king and kin both drew upon broad participation and served to exclude some people from law’s protections.