always represent the Queste’s ultimate or dominant critical position, insofar as it can even contain such a recognizable position in the first place. Dwayne C. Coleman’s chapter looks to Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and complicates the picture of moral condemnation found in the previous chapter. By likewise taking up Gawain’s reputation as a murderer, Coleman evaluates the status and function of killing by attending to its legal status in the Arthurian world. He considers the role of judicial combat as a legal instrument, for instance, and murder (illicit killing) as a crime forbidden both by law and, especially, by the Pentecost oath, which established the function of mercy yet lacked the full weight of legal enforcement. Coleman is also particularly concerned with the relationship between Arthurian society (‘in which legally defined guilt and innocence have less bearing on moral and ethical questions’) and Malory’s own contemporary moment, as he ‘lament[s] the absence’ in both of a ‘fair application of the law’ (p. 224). I regret being unable to do justice to the remaining seventeen chapters: they are on the whole rich and provocative. Indeed, one of the virtues of this volume is its impressively expansive coverage of medieval, but also some early modern sources. This virtue may have benefited from both a clearer historical picture overall (charting how the concept of murder changes during and between these periods—and the stakes of such changes) as well as more consistent, careful attention to terminology (terms like ‘crime’ and even ‘murder,’ as Tracy notes, are highly contingent upon the legal interpretation of a given culture and period, but their use in the volume is sometimes drawn too easily from contemporary Anglo-American jurisprudence; Slavin’s and Gate’s chapters are two notable exceptions). However, the collective learning that this volume puts in the hands of the reader, its coverage of a dauntingly important topic, and the diversity of its sources and approaches will make it essential reading for anyone interested in the histories of homicide.

中文翻译：

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The Nibelungenlied: with The Klage ed。威廉·T·沃布里

总是代表 Queste 的最终或主导的关键位置，因为它甚至可以包含这样一个可识别的位置。Dwayne C. Coleman 的章节着眼于 Malory 的 Le Morte Darthur，并使前一章中发现的道德谴责的画面复杂化。科尔曼同样将高文作为杀人犯的名声，通过关注其在亚瑟王世界中的法律地位来评估杀人的地位和功能。例如，他认为司法斗争是一种法律工具，谋杀（非法杀人）是法律禁止的罪行，特别是五旬节誓言，它确立了怜悯的功能，但缺乏法律的全部分量。执法。科尔曼还特别关注亚瑟王社会（“在这个社会中，法律定义的有罪和无罪与道德和伦理问题的关系较小”）与马洛里自己的当代时刻之间的关系，因为他“哀叹[s] “公平适用法律”（第 224 页）。我很遗憾无法对剩下的 17 章做出公正的评价：它们总体上很丰富且具有挑衅性。的确，这本书的优点之一是它对中世纪和一些早期现代资源的广泛覆盖，令人印象深刻。这种美德可能得益于更清晰的整体历史图景（描绘谋杀的概念在这些时期和之间的变化——以及这些变化的利害关系）以及对术语（如“犯罪”和“犯罪”等术语）的更加一致、谨慎的关注。甚至“谋杀”，正如特蕾西所说，很大程度上取决于对特定文化和时期的法律解释，但它们在本书中的使用有时太容易从当代英美法学中汲取；Slavin 和 Gate 的章节是两个值得注意的例外）。然而，本书让读者掌握了集体学习的知识，涵盖了一个令人生畏的重要主题，其来源和方法的多样性将使其成为对凶杀历史感兴趣的任何人的必读之作。