Pardoning Infanticide in Late Medieval France

The handling of infanticide in late medieval France offers modern audiences an underappreciated paradox: on the one hand infant murder was deplored as grave sin and crime, on the other hand, it was a pardonable offence, even the infanticidal singlemother who had killed to conceal her sin could obtain royal grace. This is far more than the usual story of law differing from practice. Christian ideology of mercy and forgiveness for sin played a central role in shaping the regulation of illegitimate births as well as abortions, stillbirths, and infanticide. Church and secular authorities alike sought to prevent as well as punish the death of infants, but they also created and implemented systems of justice with the explicit purpose of providing mercy to the repentant murderer, even an infanticide.