Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Moral offense
(1,016 words)

1. Basis and definition

Moral offenses are a modern construct of historical research on criminality to a greater extent than other groups of crimes (Property crime; Violent crime) for the purpose of conducting comparative analyses. Although already the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina contains a loose group of relevant offenses (articles 116–123) [1], they usually appear in the early modern period as “carnal crimes,” that is, sexual deviance, as still in the Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten of 1794…

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Schwerhoff, Gerd, “Moral offense”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 02 October 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_027556>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20200128



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