Time cycles of homicide in the early modern Nordic area

An extensive body of criminological research has shown that criminaland violent behaviour manifests time patterns in terms of daily,weekly and annual cycles. This is consistent with criminologicalroutine activities theory. Can we generalize these patterns to historicalperiods? In this article, we draw on a recently created uniquedataset, covering the years 1608–1699 in three Nordic regions, toexplore time cycles of offending in the early modern period.Examining daily, weekly and annual cycles, we find that lethalviolence manifested strong time patterns in the early modernperiod. The role of public holidays was central especially in theperiod lasting from Christmas to Midsummer. Probing the role ofkey routines, we disaggregated the composition of homicide cyclesby alcohol use and place of occurrence. The findings indicated thatearly modern homicide time cycles were associated with alcoholuse and activities in private places. We conclude by discussing thestrengths and limitations of our data and by suggesting furtherresearch in the promising frontier of standardized long durationhomicide research.