The crowd functioned simultaneously as audience and participant in royal punishment
Evidence
But, in this scene of terror, the role of the people was an ambiguous one. People were summoned as spectators: they were assembled to observe public exhibitions and amendes honorables; pillories, gallows and scaffolds were erected in public squares or by the roadside; sometimes the corpses of the executed persons were displayed for several days near the scenes of their crimes. Not only must people know, they must see with their own eyes. … The people also had a right to take part. The condemned man, carried in procession, exhibited, humiliated, with the horror of his crime recalled in innumerable ways, was offered to the insults, sometimes to the attacks of the spectators. The vengeance of the people was called upon to become an unobtrusive part of the vengeance of the sovereign. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 114
Categorization
- XREF: The crowd’s dual role as witness-guarantor of punishment resonates with the telescreen spectators in Oceania who both watch and are watched, and with Bentham’s inspector who needs the inmates to believe they are always seen. — connects to: Convicts actively narrated and performed their own criminality in the spectacle — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 395; Public executions required a witnessing crowd to constitute their meaning and effect — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 113; Public torture was spectacle designed to display sovereign power publicly — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 83 (+4 more)
Related
- Public executions required a witnessing crowd to constitute their meaning and effect (similarity 0.89)
- The spectacle’s crowd could invert terror into revolt against the punitive power (similarity 0.80)
- Rather than displaying sovereign power, executions staged a reversible duel between executioner and people (similarity 0.79)
- Public executions produced disorder rather than deterrence for the crowd (similarity 0.79)
- Public torture was spectacle designed to display sovereign power publicly (similarity 0.79)
- Convicts actively narrated and performed their own criminality in the spectacle (similarity 0.79)
- Public punishment was abolished because it inflamed crowds rather than teaching them. (similarity 0.79)
- Punishment’s primary audience is the non-criminal public, not the offender (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Public torture was spectacle designed to display sovereign power publicly
#corroborates(0.90) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 83 - The spectacle’s crowd could invert terror into revolt against the punitive power
#complicates(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 115 - Rather than displaying sovereign power, executions staged a reversible duel between executioner and people
#complicates(0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 119 - Public executions taught the people that violence could be met with violence
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 125 - Reformers designed punishment as a public didactic spectacle for all citizens
#qualifies(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 183