Pirates, Highwaymen, and the Origins of the Criminal in Seventeenth-Century English Thought

Abstract

This Note outlines a genealogy of the early modem English criminal. I posit an intellectual historical account of the relationship between international law concepts and the figure of the criminal in both canonical liberal social contract thought and the development of criminal enforcement in England. Tracing the figure of the brigand or latro' from international legal texts of the sixteenth century into seventeenth-century English political and literary tracts, I reach the following conclusion: "The criminal," as the figure would come to be understood in nineteenth century thought, actually pre-dates a body of criminal law as such.