The Formation Of A Persecuting Society: Power And Deviance In Western… (edition 2001)

(Second edition) This is a fascinating and important work, an extended essay on the persecution of lepers, heretics and Jews by others in medieval Europe. Moore takes issue with the traditional explanation for the increase in the scale and force of that persecution from the eleventh and twelfth century onwards—that it became more strenuous and more oppressive because heretics, Jews and lepers increased in number—and argues that we should seek the cause of persecution not in the persecuted but in the persecutors. Moore argues that in the wake of the Gregorian church reforms and as a result of an increase in socio-economic complexity, with both churchmen and aristocrats making new claims to universal political and cultural authority, the image and the rhetoric of the Other (the dangerous, the polluted, the heretic and the Jew and the carrier of disease) became means of legitimating authority. For the first time, western Europe (the book focuses mostly on France and northern Italy) becomes not a society in which some persecution takes place, but a persecuting society—a change which has ramifications for Western society right down to the twentieth century.

As a short book, addressing some very large issues, Moore is making quite a generalising argument at times, but he is careful to acknowledge that and to point out that he seeks to give a partial explanation for persecution, which is dependent always on context and contingency, and not a whole one. There are some points that I'd quibble with in terms of how Moore draws on anthropology (particularly that on African societies; I'm more and more disaffected with how (medieval) European scholars don't seem to realise that slavery is not the same institution in all societies and all time periods) to make his case, but overall this is a persuasive and well-written book. Even if you have not much background in medieval history, I would recommend The Formation of a Persecuting Society if you have an interest in social justice movements because of how Moore teases out the origins of a rhetoric of oppression that's had lengthy consequences. ( )