GRE阅读练习每日一篇(三十)_GRE阅读

GRE阅读练习每日一篇(三十)

　　One way out of this dilemma was to turn to the records of legal courts, for here the voices of the nonelite can most often be heard, as witnesses, plaintiffs, and defendants. These documents have acted as a point of entry into the mental world of the poor. Historians such as Le Roy Ladurie have used the documents to extract case histories, which have illuminated the attitudes of different social groups and have revealed how the authorities administered justice. It has been societies that have had a developed police system and practiced Roman law , with its written depositions, whose court records have yielded the most data to historians. In Anglo-Saxon countries hardly any of these benefits obtain, but it has still been possible to glean information from the study of legal documents.

　　The extraction of case histories is not, however, the only use to which court records may be put. Historians who study preindustrial Europe have used the records to establish a series of categories of crime and to quantify indictments that were issued over a given number of years. This use of the records does yield some information about the nonelite, but this information gives us little insight into the mental lives of the nonelite. We also know that the number of indictments in preindustrial Europe bears little relation to the number of actual criminal acts, and we strongly suspect that the relationship has varied widely over time. In addition, aggregate population estimates are very shaky, which makes it difficult for historians to compare rates of crime per thousand in one decade of the preindustrial period with rates in another decade. Given these inadequacies, it is clear why the case history use of court records is to be preferred.