The interface of the civil and criminal law of suicide at common law (1194-1845)

Abstract

Suicide, ... has a capacity to beget paradox in the ethical and legal systems that attempt to house it. A Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages, 2000, p153.Poor men, God made, and all for that!The reverence struck me; o'er each head. Religiously was hung its hat,. Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,. Sacred from touch: each had his berth,. His bounds, his proper place of rest,. Who last night tenanted on earth. Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, - Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. Robert Browning (1812-1889), 'The Morgue'.Nowadays, suicide is considered essentially a private act, although what constitutes suicide for epidemiological and even clinical purposes in not wholly resol..