The Language of Abuse

Later Medieval Europe

Managing Editor
Douglas Biggs
Waldorf College

Editorial Board Members

Kelly DeVries
Loyola College
William Chester Jordan
Princeton University
Cynthia J. Neville
Dalhousie University
Kathryn L. Reyerson
University of Minnesota

VOLUME 2
The Language of Abuse
Marital Violence in Later Medieval England

By

Sara M. Butler

LEIDEN • BOSTON
2007
On the cover: ‘Woman beating a man with her distaff ’, (Detail) Right hand margin Luttrell Psalter
f.60, England (East Anglia); circa 1325-1335 (Shelfmark: Add. 42130). By kind permission of
The British Library.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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ISSN: 1872-7875
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15634 0
ISBN-10: 90 04 15634 8

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 To my children, Cade and Genevieve,
for giving me so much to look forward to.
 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...................................................................... ix
List of Illustrations .................................................................... xi
List of Abbreviations .................................................................. xiii

Introduction ................................................................................ 1

Chapter One: Setting the Scene: Discourses of Passivity and

Violence .................................................................................. 30

Chapter Two: Types and Frequency of Abuse in the

Medieval Law Courts ............................................................ 68

Chapter Three: Causes of Marital Tension ............................ 98

Chapter Four: The Acceptability of Marital Violence:

Six Case Studies .................................................................... 131

Chapter Five: Regulating Marital Violence: The Family and

the Community ...................................................................... 184

Chapter Six: Scolds, Personal Liability, and Marital

Violence .................................................................................. 226

Conclusion .................................................................................. 258

Works Cited ................................................................................ 267

Index .......................................................................................... 281

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Soon after I made the decision to undertake a study of spousal abuse

in the context of late medieval England I awoke to the sudden real-
isation that it was not going to be an easy task to complete from
Halifax, Nova Scotia. In fact, without the industrious assistance of
Gwyneth Pace and Marlyn McCann of the Document Delivery
department at Killam Memorial Library (Dalhousie University), I
might still be writing this book. I am indebted as well to both the
University of Western Michigan and the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints for microfilm generously sent northwards for my
use. No book on British History can be researched entirely from the
comfort of a Canadian home, however. Thus, I would also like to
thank the staffs of The National Archives at Kew, the Canterbury
Cathedral Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives for their
assistance and patience.
I am also indebted to a number of bodies for their financial sup-
port. I am grateful foremost to the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada without whom the writing of this book
would have taken place under much less enjoyable (and perhaps less
healthy) circumstances. I would like to extend my thanks to the
Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University, the History
department of Dalhousie University, the Peter Fraser fund for British
historians, and the History department at Saint Mary’s University.
This work owes much to the intellectual contributions of a variety
of scholars. Many thanks go to Charles Donahue, Jr., Melissa Furrow,
Shannon McSheffrey, Patricia Orr and Tim Stretton for reading var-
ious drafts, offering many useful suggestions and helping me to refo-
cus my arguments. My gratitude goes to Shannon McSheffrey for
generously providing me with transcriptions of relevant cases of
spousal abuse from the diocese of London (which included the county
of Essex), specifically LMA MS DL/C/205, GL MS 9064/1–8 and
9065, saving me much time in the London archives. Much of the
credit for the existence of this book has to go also to my doctoral
advisor, Cynthia Neville, whose generosity, kindness and encourage-
ment helped to keep me going even when I thought I was ready to
give up. Cynthia has been a true inspiration for me and I only hope
x acknowledgements

that I will someday be half the scholar that she already is. For ref-
erences, advice, support and inspiration I am indebted to many. A
short, but not exhaustive list must include: Deanne Baker, Aki Beam,
Siobhain Bly Calkin, Ian Gentles, Ann Higgins, Louis Knafla, Krista
Kesselring, Ruth McClelland-Nugent, Marjorie McIntosh, Suzanne
Sheffield, Brian Shipley, Arlene Sindelar and Shirley Tillotson. And,
of course, thanks to my parents, Carol and Brian Butler, who nur-
tured my love of history from a very early age and gave me the
confidence to pursue a doctoral degree.
Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Mark LaBine, whose
patience, support and kind heart kept my spirits high throughout
this process, despite some setbacks. My debt to him is both emo-
tional and intellectual. He rescued me from a monstrous pile of cue
cards recording thousands of cases by tailoring a database to my
exact specifications. Without his ingenuity, creativity and hours of
hard work this book simply would not have been possible.
Parts of this book have appeared in previous publications, although
in much different forms. Some of the central ideas and case mate-
rial in Chapter Five appear in my “Spousal Abuse in Fourteenth-
Century Yorkshire: What can we learn from the Coroners’ Rolls?”
Florilegium 18.2 (2001): 61–78. It is reprinted here with kind per-
mission of the Canadian Society of Medievalists / Société canadi-
enne des médiévistes. Also, three of the case studies in Chapter Four
are discussed in my “Lies, Damned Lies, and the Life of Saint Lucy:
Three Cases of Judicial Separation from the Late Medieval Court
of York,” in Trompe(-)l’œil: Imitation & Falsification, ed. P. Romanski
and A. Sy-Wonyu (Rouen: Publications de l’Université de Rouen,
2002), 1–16. Please note: the spelling of all Middle English quota-
tions has been modernised in order to make this work more acces-
sible to the readers.
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

These images are reproduced here with permission from:

Ayers Bagley “Misericords & Choir Stall Carvings:
Education, Imagery and Satire in Medieval Choirs,”
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1999),
http://education.umn.edu/EdPA/iconics/misericord/misericords_text.htm.

1: A misericord from Stratford-upon-Avon illustrating

the mundus inversus. A wife pulls her husband’s beard and
prepares to hit him with a pot. .......................................... 66

2: A misericord from Stratford-upon-Avon depicting marital

strife. ........................................................................................ 66

3: A misericord from Westminster Abbey’s Henry VII

Chapel. A wife beats her cowering husband with a
distaff. ...................................................................................... 67

4: A misericord from Westminster Abbey’s Henry VII

Chapel. A woman birches her husband’s bottom. This
imagery is reminiscent of a schoolmaster’s punishment of
a disobedient boy. .................................................................. 67
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Cons. AB Consistory Court Act book

CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls
D/C AB Dean and Chapter Act book
DL Diocese of London
ERO Essex Record Office
GL Guildhall Library, London
LMA London Metropolitan Archives
TNA The National Archives, Kew, Surrey
YBI CP. E York Cause Papers for the fourteenth century, preserved
at the Borthwick Institute for Historical Research
YBI CP. F York Cause Papers for the fifteenth century, preserved
at the Borthwick Institute for Historical Research
York M records of York Minster
 INTRODUCTION

Since the emergence of feminist history in the 1970s, scholars have

employed social perceptions of the acceptability of spousal abuse as
a tool of historical analysis to evaluate male-female relations within
both the family and the community at large. Inspired by current
sociological trends, women’s historians have stormed the past hunting
for evidence of women’s daily lives in order to determine the actual
status of women in earlier societies and cultures. Despite the perti-
nence of the inferences drawn from a study of attitudes towards, and
incidents of, spousal abuse within an historical setting, this area of
research has been plagued with unbridled speculation and anachro-
nistic projection of views onto the past. This plight is especially true
in respect of pre-modern societies such as medieval England. From
Lawrence Stone’s depiction of married life in the Middle Ages as
“brutal and often hostile, with little communication, [and] much
wife-beating” to Eileen Power’s vision of “rough and ready equality,”
historians have produced a great diversity of conflicting visions of
spousal abuse within medieval society.1 Bearing in mind that a
woman’s place in the family very much reflects the role society per-
mits and expects her to play, these conclusions can be misleading.
Stone’s understanding of medieval life imagines a world that accorded
few rights to women in theory and in practice; Power, on the other
hand, would argue in favour of a broad gap between the two in which
the reality of medieval English life confirmed a much wider range
of options for participation by women in medieval culture.2 Given

1
Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage 1500–1800 (New York: Harper
& Row, 1977), 117; Eileen Power, Medieval Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1975), 34.
2
While Stone and Power represent the earlier proponents of these beliefs, many
later scholars have adopted their perspectives. For example, much like Stone, Judith
Bennett has argued that “[t]he wife’s duty to obey, and the husband’s right to
ensure that she did, was a cornerstone of the ideal of marriage.” See Judith M.
Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock Before
the Plague (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 6. Power’s more optimistic per-
spective has attracted many historians. Among others, see Barbara A. Hanawalt,
The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986), chapter thirteen who argues in favour of marriage as a “partnership”;
2 introduction

the larger implications of rates of spousal abuse, an accurate under-

standing of women’s place in medieval English society rests on a
sharper awareness of medieval attitudes towards violence in marriage.
The difficulty of such an endeavour, of course, is the subject itself.
Today, spousal abuse is not the stuff of polite conversation: despite
the increasing number of governmental and charitable agencies, as
well as a growing body of legislation, developed to cope with violence
in the home, individuals and communities in general still seem to
labour under the impression that spousal abuse is a matter best left
to the family. Consequently, many cases of abuse go undetected by
both officers of law enforcement and the courts. The records of
medieval England offer this same impression. In the medieval era,
only egregious cases of abuse that were beyond the control of both
family and neighbours appeared before the courts. This perception
undoubtedly is compounded by the fact that many court records have
perished or been discarded since the Middle Ages. As a result, we
cannot possibly expect surviving records to offer a precise reflection
of actual rates of marital violence in the medieval period. The veil
of secrecy about abuse simultaneously exacerbates a study of medieval
attitudes towards marital violence. Keeping in mind that writing in
the Middle Ages was regarded primarily as a tool of commerce by
the peasantry and a vehicle for instruction by the elite, the documents
do not offer much evidence regarding familial sentiment, let alone
contemporary understandings of abuse. Beliefs about marital violence,
then, must be ferreted out of some rather unexpected sources; and
it is only after an examination of a very broad number of docu-
ments and artefacts that we may feel comfortable delineating medieval
perceptions of the limits of abuse.
Another obvious problem is the very term ‘violence’ itself. Modern
perceptions of the word have hindered studies of violence in the
medieval context. Societies define ‘violence’ according to their ethi-
cal and cultural standards, and thus the concept is historically and
regionally variable.3 What is excessive force in modern terms might
then have been seen as compulsory discipline. For example, today

Caroline M. Barron’s “The ‘Golden Age’ of Women in Medieval London,” Reading

Medieval Studies 15 (1989): 33–58 who argues that married women retained a high
degree of independence.
3
Philippa C. Maddern, Violence and Social Order: East Anglia 1422–1442 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992), chapter three.
 introduction 3

spanking a child is considered criminal in some areas of the Western

world; in medieval Europe, it was considered an act of piety.4 One
cannot rely on a modern definition of violence, but must reconstruct
the medieval understanding of what constitutes a violent act. In
examining the medieval family, then, we need to cast off traditional
notions of primitivism, linearity and intrinsic barbarity, and attempt
to unravel the medieval experience of familial affection and the inter-
twined power relations. In light of Richard Helmholz’s work on par-
ent-child violence in late medieval England, this approach seems
particularly pertinent. Helmholz notes that not only did canon law
encourage vigorous punishment of children, but in practise, charges
of abuse were levelled against children rather than parents. For exam-
ple, Helmholz describes the case of John Goldache in the court of
the archdeacon of Canterbury in 1503, accused of having “on sev-
eral occasions thrown beer and milk into the face of his father,
against the natural disposition of a son and contra bonos mores.”5
Helmholz records numerous other cases of children cited as having
“laid violent hands” on their parents.6 This approach to family vio-
lence is sufficiently far removed from ours today, that, inevitably, we
must force ourselves to shuffle off our modern coils and view the
evidence with an open mind.
More important still, while today we might expect a woman to
leave behind an abusive husband, this is a modern perception that
cannot reasonably be imposed on the past. Because medieval wives
anticipated some degree of physical force in marriage, they were more
willing to tolerate what we today would see as abuse. This expec-
tation itself may have had a profound influence on the very nature
of the marital relationship, and may have made it more difficult for
medieval wives to recognise instances of excessive violence. Furthermore,
while women’s shelters, welfare organisations, social workers and a
wide variety of charitable groups today encourage victims of abuse
to abandon violent marriages, medieval society was bereft of these
forms of social assistance. A mistreated wife in the Middle Ages

4
Emil Friedberg, ed., Decretum Gratiana (Leipzig: University of Leipzig, 1879),
C. 5 q. 5 c. 3.
5
R.H. Helmholz, “And were there children’s rights in early modern England?
The canon law and ‘intra-family violence’ in England, 1400–1640,” The International
Journal of Children’s Rights 1 (1993): 27.
6
Helmholz, “And were there children’s rights,” 27–9.
4 introduction

might have few options for support available to her, making desertion
an unfeasible (and possibly shameful) alternative. The same woman
that we today would see as a victim of abuse then might well have
considered herself a discontented, but otherwise typical, wife.
To write a history of violence against women in any context is
no easy task; violence of a gendered nature implicitly involves notions
of power and identity that require careful consideration. The difficulty,
as John Tosh and Michael Roper remind us, is to avoid setting up
what seems like a constant victim/victimiser dichotomy. Too often
men are seen merely as agents of oppression, and “[w]ithout a more
complete understanding of why men sought to control and exploit
women, we risk returning to theories of an inherent male tendency
towards domination,” and in turn establishing an innate female will-
ingness to be subordinated.7 The history of violence against women
is not merely a history of women as victims. In order to elucidate
medieval attitudes towards spousal abuse, it is necessary to shed all
notions of intrinsic masculinity or femininity and instead to under-
stand how both men and women participated, even challenged, and
transformed the discourse through indifference, acceptance and rebel-
lion. The goal of this study, then, is to uncover the multiple layers
within medieval English understandings of the acceptability of mar-
ital violence and their reflection in recorded rates of abuse.

The Historiography of Spousal Abuse

Although many historians have made use of the idea of violence in

medieval marriages, spousal abuse rarely has been the focus of
medieval historical research. In fact, Barbara A. Hanawalt is the
only medieval historian to have attempted systematic investigation of
the subject of violence against spouses.8 Her work, which focuses on

7
Michael Roper and John Tosh, “Introduction: Historians and the politics of
masculinity,” in Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800, ed. John Tosh
and Michael Roper (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 10.
8
Hanawalt’s most important work on this subject can be found in chapter five
of Crime and Conflict in English Communities 1300–1348 (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1979); however, this is not the only work she has written in this area. See
also chapter ten of The Ties that Bound; “The Peasant Family and Crime in Fourteenth-
Century England,” Journal of British Studies 13 (1974), 1–18; and “Women before
the Law: Females as Felons and Prey in Fourteenth-Century England,” in Women
 introduction 5

the most severe form of domestic violence, spousal homicide, is fun-

damental to any study of abuse in medieval England. Using records
of the royal courts to produce a statistical analysis of the occurrence,
her findings indicate that relationships between husbands and wives
produced few homicides in medieval England, in stark contrast with
modern statistics. Hanawalt has proposed two explanations for this
low rate of intra-familial homicide: either families were so tightly
knit that disputes were resolved within the group and not permitted
to escalate or, conversely, families were simply a “loose grouping”
of individuals, and tensions rarely developed because relationships
were so casual.9 The nature of such an intensely agricultural lifestyle
has caused Hanawalt to side with the former explanation, propos-
ing that marriage was a “partnership” in every sense of the word.
Hanawalt’s hypothesis seems both reasonable and idyllic, harken-
ing back to the day when the phrase ‘family values’ had real mean-
ing. Given our current social and political climate, this vision is both
refreshing and encouraging. Today’s media would have us believe
that violence is rife, not only on a political level with unparalleled
acts of terrorism, but also in our daily lives, highlighting schoolroom
hijackings, highway snipers, and fatal child abductions. In this light,
the cohesive family and community of earlier times is an appealing
image to reassure ourselves that violence is not an integral part of
human society. Nevertheless, this vision of the medieval family is
somewhat limited and may not reflect a realistic perspective of
medieval society. Hanawalt’s statistical analysis rests exclusively on
the findings of gaol delivery rolls.10 These documents relate only to
people who came to trial on indictments of felony before justices of
assize. They do not relate to other alleged felonies, including those
tried before justices of the peace or royal justices in the King’s Bench,
nor do they address non-felonious violence dealt with outside royal

and the Law: A Social Historical Perspective, ed. D.K. Weisberg (Cambridge: Schenkman,
1982), 1.165–95. A more recent summary of this work can be seen in her “Violence
in the Domestic Milieu of Late Medieval England,” in Violence in Medieval Society,
ed. Richard W. Kaeuper (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), 197–214.
9
Hanawalt, “The Peasant Family and Crime,” 5.
10
Her statistical analysis is based exclusively on gaol delivery rolls from Essex,
Herefordshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Somerset, Surrey and
Yorkshire, during the period 1300 to 1348. She also uses examples from coroners’
rolls of the same counties and manorial court records from Wakefield to illustrate
her conclusions.
6 introduction

courts. On their own, then, gaol delivery rolls do not provide the
‘total picture.’ Moreover, these documents give us a very poor sam-
pling of society. The upper ranks of medieval English society do not
appear in gaol delivery records, since their status more or less
exempted them from such venues.11 To uncover the violent acts of
the upper ranks, then, we need new strategies.
Additionally, no matter how tempting it is, Hanawalt’s conclusions
remind us that we cannot offer accurate comparisons with modern
statistics. The disparity in levels of reliable documentation makes
such a comparison untenable. While modern police records are usu-
ally quite extensive, we do not know just how complete or incomplete
medieval records actually are, and thus should not attempt to gen-
erate solid conclusions from divergent statistics. Further, some his-
torians have painted a grisly picture of levels of violence in medieval
England. J.B. Given concludes that “it is possible that every person
in England in the thirteenth century, if he did not personally witness
a murder, knew or knew of someone who had been killed.”12 Barbara
Hanawalt herself argues that the rates of urban violence were so
extreme that “in medieval London or Oxford, the man in the street ran
more of a risk of dying at the hands of a fellow citizen than he did
from an accident.”13 If these statements accurately reflect real levels
of violence, the small percentage of domestic homicides in medieval
England, in actual numbers, may translate to a higher figure than
do today’s spouse-murders. Even so, Hanawalt’s seminal work lays
an important foundation for all future studies of domestic violence.
Hanawalt is not the only medieval historian to have explored the
subject of spousal abuse. Richard Helmholz’s investigation of mar-
riage litigation also delves into the field of marital tensions played
out in violence.14 In his work, he takes a much different approach

11
Of course, only the peers of the realm had the privilege of being tried in what
was to become the House of Lords; nevertheless, the nobility rarely appeared in
the records of normal criminal processes because medieval juries were hesitant to
indict their social superiors. Intimidation, then, worked to ensure that the crimes
of the upper ranks of medieval society would be underrepresented in the records
of the court.
12
J.B. Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1977), 40.
13
Barbara A. Hanawalt, “Violent Death in Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-
Century England,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 18 (1976): 302.
14
R.H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (New York; Cambridge
University Press, 1974), 100–107. Domestic violence is only a minor aspect of this
 introduction 7

from that of Hanawalt. Looking instead at the records of the church

courts, he focuses on clerical precautions undertaken in order to rec-
oncile the couple without fear of further physical abuse. His findings
define the role of ecclesiastical judges in promoting marital bliss,
placing them firmly in favour of upholding the sacraments whenever
possible. Helmholz also identifies a significant gap between ecclesiastical
prescription and secular practice: while the medieval church sought
to play the role of moral police, their teachings sometimes fell on
deaf ears. Without a viable means of enforcing their beliefs, then,
the church courts practiced a much different sense of morality than
did the laity. Marital violence, however, is only a tiny fraction of
this much greater project, and Helmholz’s evidence relies on a small
number of cases. His treatment of the subject, then, acts as a call for
more research, while at the same time demonstrates that any study
of domestic violence in the medieval period must include the records
of the medieval church.
Studies of both probity and violence on a larger scale have also
made some valuable contributions to a fuller understanding of com-
munity life in the later Middle Ages. In particular, historians have
identified the fourteenth century as a pivotal moment in the devel-
opment of a medieval moral code. Increasingly, notions of personal
liability were becoming central to an overall sense of social wellbeing.
As long ago as 1973, Richard Kaeuper described fourteenth-century
England as experiencing a “contemporary sense of crisis,” resulting
from an “outbreak of violence and illegality which stands out even
when viewed against the background of disorder endemic in medieval
society.”15 Responses to this crisis were widespread and varied, but
all focused on the central notion of personal liability. Marjorie
McIntosh examines the reaction of social elites from the viewpoint
of mounting concerns over social misbehaviour. She argues that, out

study. Helmholz is interested primarily in the church’s approach in dealing with

marital disputes of all kinds, and only briefly discusses the issues of inter-spousal
violence, spouse repudiation and marital disharmony.
15
R.W. Kaeuper, “Law and Order in Fourteenth-Century England: the Evidence
of Special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer,” Speculum 54 (1979): 1. Whether
rates of violence were actually increasing, is not at issue, however. As Kaueper
notes, “the language of disorder quickly becomes formulaic” and may well repre-
sent an exaggeration of disorder “as a means of emphasizing the virtue of what-
ever royal action” was being proposed (736). Irrespective of actual rates, there was
a strong sense of a crisis in law and order.
8 introduction

of a desire to preserve respectability, local leaders joined together to

prosecute scolds, sexual deviants, gamblers, drunkards, vagrants, eaves-
droppers and others whose conduct did not conform rigorously to
the models of their social superiors.16 Shannon McSheffrey observes
a similar change in moral regulation. Concern about sexual misbe-
haviour prompted senior men, as the patriarchs of the community,
to police relationships, encouraging them to break into homes at all
hours of the night in order to put a stop to fornication and adul-
tery.17 S.F.C. Milsom notes that this same period witnessed the rise
of trespass litigation and the birth of case law: two fundamental tools
designed to lay blame where blame is due.18 An emerging sense of
accountability for one’s own misconduct unites all of these changes
in legal practice and social mores, with a firm awareness that pri-
vate actions have public ramifications. Although spousal abuse often
occurred in the privacy of a couple’s home, this violence had a
significant impact on the social fabric of medieval life. Bearing in
mind fourteenth-century England’s turn to civility, local leaders may
also have targeted spousal abuse as a social misbehaviour in need
of correction.
Community studies focused on the role played by social hierarchy
in the late medieval period reinforce the legal perspective. Despite
the havoc and upheaval of the Black Death, the works of a number
of historians claim that this calamity only strengthened community
values across England. For example, Christopher Dyer argues, “the
apparent growth in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in
organizations and occasions which celebrated the unity of the village—
the parish guilds, the church ales, and so on—owes something to
their deliberate promotion by the village elite in order to foster a
community spirit in danger of being eroded by economic realities.”

16
Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior in England, 1370 –1600
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
17
Shannon McSheffrey, “Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval London Civic
Culture,” in Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed.
Jacqueline Murray (New York: Garland, 1999), 250–1. Other leading historians
who have made similar observations concerning a change in social mores in the
fourteenth century are: Barbara A. Hanawalt, “ ‘Good Governance’ in the Medieval
and Early Modern Context,” Journal of British Studies 37 (1998): 246–257; Robert
C. Palmer, English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348–1381: a Transformation of
Governance and Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).
18
S.F.C. Milsom, Studies in the History of the Common Law (London: Ronceverte,
1985), 80–1.
 introduction 9

Thus, it is not “mere illusion that the community was more active
in the later Middle Ages,” but a glaring reality.19 Historians have
tended to shy away from such intense studies of community interaction
because, as Gervase Rosser has argued, they find “the communitarian
emphasis” to be “unrealistic and, perhaps, faintly embarrassing.”20
Nevertheless, village communities had their “own internal priorities,”21
and respectability and cohesion were foremost among their concerns.
A well-ordered social hierarchy provided the base for this social unity,
and historians have acknowledged “the important role of the peasant
elite in maintaining internal cohesion in the medieval village, whether
by coercion or by other means.”22 The law was merely a tool to
achieve these ends. As Rosser has claimed in his study of sanctuary
in the later Middle Ages, “the collective behaviour of neighbours,
whether in village or town, was a crucial determinant,” permitting
the neighbourhood to assume the role of “mitigator or critic of the
policies of government.”23 Through their work as village adminis-
trators, jurors, church elders and guild members, community lead-
ers imposed their views of respectability, founded on a strong sense
of place, on the society in which they lived. Thus, domestic violence,
which frequently presented a threat to both social and gender hier-
archies, may have become a greater source of unease in this period.
To date, early modernists, such as Lawrence Stone, have carried
out most of the research undertaken in the English context of domes-
tic violence. While their findings cannot be imposed on later medieval
England, their methodologies nevertheless provide models for the

19
Christopher Dyer, “The English Medieval Village Community and its Decline,”
Journal of British Studies 33 (1994): 428–9. Other recent works that emphasise the
importance of the village community in the late Middle Ages are: Z. Razi, “Family,
Land and Village Community in Later Medieval England,” Past and Present 93 (1981):
3–36; M.K. McIntosh, Autonomy and Community: The Royal Manor of Havering, 1200–1500
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); L.R. Poos, A rural society after the
Black Death, Essex 1350–1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Mavis
E. Mate, Daughters, Wives and Widows after the Black Death: Women in Sussex, 1350–1535
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998); Barbara A. Hanawalt, Of Good and Ill Repute:
Gender and Social Control in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University Press,
1998).
20
Gervase Rosser, “Going to the Fraternity Feast: Commensality and Social
Relations in Late Medieval England,” Journal of British Studies 33 (1994): 430.
21
Dyer, 409.
22
Maryanne Kowaleski, “Introduction,” Journal of British Studies 33 (1994): 338.
23
Gervase Rosser, “Sanctuary and social negotiation in medieval England,” in
The Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed.
John Blair and Brian Golding (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 60 and 79.
10 introduction

study of this subject in the setting of the Middle Ages and their
findings hint at possible medieval antecedents. For example, focusing
specifically on representations of spousal abuse as reflected in ballads
and broadsheets, Frances Dolan uncovers a significant pattern in
general perceptions of what English people understood as domestic
violence and how these interpretations were internalised. She remarks
that popular concerns regarding domestic violence shifted from an
emphasis on overbearing women in the sixteenth century to tyrannical
men in the eighteenth. The value of Dolan’s critical approach is to
demonstrate that, even if we cannot base a history of spousal abuse
firmly in the study of rates of homicide, it is still possible to chart
changes in meaning and means of regulation in the context of spousal
violence. Despite differences of experience owing to rank, age and
region, the people Dolan examines shared an internalisation of social
constructs regarding spousal abuse. In the process of exploring rep-
resentations of spousal abuse in early modern England, she shows
that it is possible to uncover a multitude of social perceptions con-
cerning male-female relations, family dynamics, social welfare, and
the role of women in society.24
Similarly, Laura Gowing’s research into defamation and marriage
litigation in the ecclesiastical courts of early modern London demon-
strates the value of witness depositions to a study of abuse. She sees
in these testimonies layers of cultural meanings; sifting through these
one is made more aware of the various understandings of ‘woman,’
‘wife’ and ‘marriage’ peculiar to London at this time. Moreover, she
argues that women’s sexual morality was necessary to the gender
order and thus to marital and social order; this thesis finds some
resonance in medieval gender expectations. Her conclusions, then,
among others “while women’s adultery was the epitome of dishon-
esty, men’s violence could be argued to be ‘honest’,” may reflect a
developing ideal originating in late medieval England.25

24
Frances E. Dolan, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England
1550 –1700 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
25
Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 219.
 introduction 11

The Legal Process and Sources

While it seems likely that many cases of abuse did not make it into
the courts, some did, perhaps even many more than today, although
the spotty survival of medieval records prohibits us from drawing
any such comparisons. Nonetheless, medieval England was an extra-
ordinarily litigious society. The English people were accustomed to
appearing in court to protect and defend their rights, even as a pre-
ventative measure and spousal abuse was no exception to this rule.
The nature of the subject, however, invariably requires the historian
to cast a wide net. In part, such an approach is essential because
no one jurisdiction might lay claim to the resolution of disputes aris-
ing from marital violence. In theory, the ecclesiastical courts were
responsible for addressing marriage-related issues, and thus one would
expect most cases to have appeared there. Similarly, all homicide-
related cases belonged to the purview of the king’s courts. Even so,
the jurisdictions and power structure of the two court systems were
simply not that clear-cut.26 The church courts often dealt with mat-
ters that rightfully should have come before the secular courts as
felonies, misdemeanours or civil suits; however, as W.R. Jones has
argued, much of the difficulty is that “[n]either the clergy nor the
laity were united among themselves in defending one jurisdiction or
the other. Both laymen and clerks of all ranks took their legal prob-
lems to whomever could solve them regardless of rival claims and
pretensions.”27 Because of the failure of contemporaries to recognise
any rigid distinction in jurisdictions, even cases of assault or homicide
sometimes made their way into the venue of the church courts. Take
for example the case of the 1397 purgation of Idonea, widow of
William Pynder of Bainton, before the rector at Bainton on the
charge of complicity in the death of her husband. A memorandum
copied into the archbishop of York’s register notes that William

26
For a good discussion of the interaction between secular and ecclesiastical judi-
cial systems, see, W.R. Jones, “Relations of the Two Jurisdictions: Conflict and
Cooperation in England during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Studies
in Medieval and Renaissance History, v. 7, ed. W. Bowsky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1970), 77–210; R.H. Helmholz, Canon Law and English Common Law (London:
Selden Society, 1983), and his “Crime, Compurgation and the Courts of the Medieval
Church,” Law and History Review 1 (1983): 1–26.
27
Jones, 88.
12 introduction

received the fatal wound not from his wife, but from an unknown
assailant. Yet, neighbours believed his wife consented to his death
and “planned it by placing a long tent into William’s head as far
as the brain and by removing four bones from his head.”28 The
appearance of this case in an archbishop’s register, at first, is hard
to explain, however a subsequent memorandum makes it clear that
this is not a case of murder, but defamation. In response to the rec-
tor’s complaint, the archbishop sent a letter to the rector commanding
him to begin the process of excommunication against persons guilty
of defaming Idonea in the death of her husband.29 Richard Helmholz
has argued that this was a relatively frequent occurrence. Men and
women rumoured to be felons sometimes appeared in England’s
church courts to protect their reputations; and more often than not,
these rumours revolved around complicity in the death of a loved
one.30 This finding is not altogether surprising. When a person died
and the cause of death was unknown or misunderstood, a recent
fight with a family member may have seemed like the logical expla-
nation. In Idonea’s case, her neighbours may have misinterpreted
an attempt to save his life. The word tentum in this context means
“[a] roll or pledget, usually of soft absorbent material, often med-
icated, or sometimes of a medicinal substance, formerly much used
to search and cleanse a wound or to keep open or distend a wound,
sore or natural orifice.”31 Unless Idonea was dabbling in some form
of illicit medieval voodoo, it seems plausible that she was trying to
save her husband’s life by removing debris from his crushed skull
and cleansing the wound. The court’s decision to sentence in her
favour would seem to corroborate this hypothesis. Neighbours and
friends unsure of the validity of this medical procedure, however,

28
David M. Smith, ed., A Calendar of the Register of Robert Waldby Archbishop of York,
1397 (Borthwick Texts and Calendars, v. 2, 1974), 11.
29
Smith, 12.
30
Helmholz, “Crime, compurgation and the courts,” 10. A number of cases of
this type appear in the Commissary Court Act books for the diocese of London.
For example, in the year 1471 Symon Hervy accused John Euilyn of hiring his ser-
vant, John Hervy, to poison his wife Joan whom he had treated poorly on a number
of occasions (GL MS 9064/1, fo. 106v). Also, in a case from the year 1486, William
Asker and his wife defamed Joan Pollard by saying that she kept a knife at the
head of her bed with the intention of slitting her husband’s throat. This accusation
was so loaded that Joan’s husband threw her out of their home. (GL MS 9064/2,
fo. 156r).
31
Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press) vol. 17, 2nd edition,
785. Also, see Smith, 11n.
 introduction 13

spread their uncertainty in rumour, compelling Idonea to respond

with proof of her innocence. Her appearance in the courts Christian
to defend herself against accusations of an admittedly secular crime
demonstrates that a thorough investigation of marital violence requires
an examination of a variety of courts, because medieval litigants
sometimes used the courts in unexpected and creative ways.
Families, friends and neighbours were heavily involved in address-
ing most medieval cases of spousal abuse; those couples whose behav-
iour could not be modified sufficiently by those around them, however,
made their way into one of a number of courts. Abusive husbands,
disobedient wives and disruptive couples alike found themselves pre-
sented by neighbours at manorial and borough courts. The manor-
ial courts primarily dealt with cases of civil jurisdiction, but also some
disciplinary matters of a criminal (but non-felonious) nature, such as
small-scale assault (‘drawing blood,’ or initiating an ‘affray’) and petty
larceny. The borough courts for the urban centres worked in much
the same way and dealt with similar cases. The borough courts were
not feudal in nature; they were a development of the High Middle
Ages, granted by the king as a concession intended to resolve the
unusual problems that arise in an urban environment. Consequently,
while they were royal courts per se, the common law was not as
binding in this forum. For the county of York, this study examines
the voluminous records of the manor of Wakefield32 together with
the surviving materials from other Yorkshire manors available at The
National Archives at Kew, Surrey, such as Sheffield, Thorner,
Pontefract, Bradford, and Tickhill Honour. For Essex, the plentiful
records of Earls Colne,33 and the borough of Colchester34 have been

32
The records of the manor of Wakefield are a stunning collection including a
vast number of both courts and tourns from the thirteenth century onwards. Since
a large number of these rolls have been transcribed (sometimes translated) and pub-
lished by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, only the published sources have been
used for this study.
33
Alan Macfarlane’s translations and microforming of the Earls Colne records
has been of great use in this study. See Alan Macfarlane, ed., Records of an English
Village: Earls Colne, 1400–1750 (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1980–81) http://www.
colnevalley.com/Ecrecords.htm.
34
The records of Colchester borough are as abundant as are those for Wakefield
manor. In the interests of brevity, this author chose to examine only published bor-
ough records. Isaac Herbert Jeayes has edited and translated three large volumes
of rolls, spanning the majority of the fourteenth century (1310–1352, 1352–1367,
and 1372–1379). See Isaac Herbert Jeayes, ed. and trans., Court Rolls of the Borough
of Colchester (3 vols., Colchester: W. Gurney, 1921).
14 introduction

supplemented with the much less spectacular records of Nazeing to

provide the base for a local investigation of domestic violence.
Abusive persons or couples might also find themselves presented
in an ecclesiastical court under the church’s ex officio jurisdiction.
Cases of this nature were disciplinary matters, initiated by court sum-
mons and intended to reform the moral behaviour of the individuals
arraigned. These records, then, not only draw attention to cases of
marital breakdown, but also offer an understanding of what respectable
people believed to be an excessive use of violence in marriage. This
study explores these records for both York and Canterbury in con-
junction with the archbishops’ registers, correspondence between var-
ious archbishops of York and Canterbury and lower church officials
regarding individual cases and actions.35 Ex officio registers of this
nature provide a fuller view of the archbishop in a disciplinary
capacity because they generally include discussions of matrimonial
complications and transgressions by members of the upper echelons
of society.36
A victim of abuse also had the option of petitioning an ecclesias-
tical court for a divorce a mensa et thoro (from table and bed), or a
formal separation. Although the church was adamant in its belief
that marriages are indissoluble, it did permit couples to live separately
in situations of cruelty (saevitia) or repeated adultery. A separation,
however, did not annul the union: the church still deemed the cou-
ple married even if they no longer behaved as a married couple. A
discussion of the kinds of cases for which the church permitted a
separation, then, reveal much about general attitudes towards spousal
abuse. This study investigates the records of the archbishops for the
northern and southern ecclesiastical provinces and records from the
dioceses of York, Canterbury and London,37 with a primary focus
on the counties of York and Essex, and some insight into eastern

35
Many archbishops’ registers exist in printed form, and retain the Latin of their
originals. While the archbishops’ registers only offer insight primarily into the dioce-
san work of these officials (thus, limiting an investigation to the dioceses of York
and Canterbury respectively) an examination of the printed records of the diocese
of London (of which Essex was a part) was also included in this study.
36
All couples who appeared in cases of marital strife were checked against spousal
homicides in the database, unfortunately without results. Moreover, interesting cases
(such as the six case studies discussed at length in chapter four) were traced when-
ever possible in the Calendar of Patent Rolls and Calendar of Close Rolls.
37
In order to reduce the volume of records, for the diocese of London this study
takes into consideration only those records having to do with the county of Essex.
 introduction 15

Kent and London. Because of the paucity of records surviving for

Essex, it seemed prudent to extend the investigation to neighbouring
Kent, a county that shared much of Essex’s rebellious history and
political concerns. Moreover, because Essex shared dioceses with the
city of London, some cases of abuse from this region have also made
their way into this study to supplement the gaps in Essex’s records.
Every so often, when violence in a marital relationship went unno-
ticed or the unofficial or legal options for resolution failed to address
it adequately, abuse escalated to the point of homicide. Because com-
mon law required coroners to investigate any violent or unexpected
death, their rolls are a valuable repository of local opinion. In the
course of an inquest, coroners questioned neighbours, witnesses, and
the first finder, as well as examining carefully the body of the vic-
tim in order to detect any suspicious lesions or abrasions that might
indicate death due to unnatural causes (such as bruising caused by
strangulation). This combination of verbal inquiry and physical exam-
ination sometimes led coroners to identify the spouse as a culprit.
This type of evidence is of great value for a study of spousal abuse:
coroners’ inquests provide a window into the minds of kin and neigh-
bours and often speak to their immediate suspicions and attitudes.
The cross-examination of relatives and neighbours who made up the
coroners’ inquest jury usually proved to be the most informative part
of the process. Here, it is important to understand that the medieval
concept of a jury was completely unlike our modern counterpart.
Theoretically, the former knew (or thought they knew) exactly what
had happened, even if they had not actually witnessed the death
themselves. What these few neighbours had to say significantly
influenced the outcome of the case. The death of an Oxfordshire
woman, Matilda Pouk, in 1342 demonstrates just how important was
the opinion of neighbours. The inquest jurors note that she died a
natural death, having been sick with “diverse diseases and old.” How-
ever, “because there was much talk that her husband beat her
unduly . . . the body was rolled over and over before the eyes of the
coroners’ and there was no injury in body or head or limbs” and
thus, no one was guilty of her death.38 Coroners took into careful
consideration the observations of neighbours and friends in determining
the cause of death. After the interrogation, the coroner recorded his

38
H.E. Salter, ed., Records of Mediaeval Oxford: Coroners’ Inquests, the Walls of Oxford,
Etc. (Oxford: The Oxford Chronicle Company, Ltd., 1912), 24.
16 introduction

perceptions of the death and the jury’s beliefs. These notes were
then passed on to his scribe who made up the final record, and are
referred to collectively as the coroners’ rolls.39
If local officials were capable of apprehending the suspect, he or
she was then imprisoned until justices of assize arrived to deliver the
gaols of their prisoners by holding trials for all those accused of
felonies. The records of these trials, gaol delivery rolls, offer a much
less local perspective than do coroners’ rolls. However, they also pro-
vide what many coroners’ rolls do not: a judgement. Accordingly,
many cases can be traced from their first appearance before the
coroner’s inquest jury to the hanging or acquittal of the defendant.
For the purposes of statistical analysis, the inclusion of this type of
record has proven to be fruitful. For a variety of reasons, many of
the cases of spousal homicide in the coroners’ rolls were not also
included in the gaol delivery rolls, among others, because the accused
fled the scene of the crime and failed to reappear in the community
to stand trial. Occasionally such incidents make their way into the
gaol delivery rolls, but not consistently, and thus a full perspective
of spousal homicide from the period requires examination of both.
However, in light of the statistical failings of previous studies, this
investigation attempts to avoid the pitfalls inherent in these records
with a cautious and judicious use of statistical analysis.40 This study
employs coroners’ rolls and records of gaol delivery records41 for
both York42 and Essex.43 For the period after the demise of the eyre,

39
Coroners’ rolls belong to the class of documents referred to as Justices Itinerant
2 ( JUST 2) and housed in The National Archives in Kew, Surrey.
40
For a discussion of some of the difficulties involved in using gaol delivery rolls
for statistical analysis, see J.B. Post, “Crime in later medieval England: some his-
toriographical limitations,” Continuity and Change 2 (1987): 211–24; and E. Powell,
“Social Research and the Use of Medieval Criminal Records,” Michigan Law Review
79 (1980–81): 967–78.
41
I examined not only those gaol deliveries that belong to the class of records
categorised as gaol delivery ( JUST 3), but also those that appear in the records of
the eyre courts from the early part of the period ( JUST 1) and those in the King’s
Bench rolls (KB 27).
42
Coroners’ rolls exist for York for the period 1333 to 1393, in what seems to
be a fairly unbroken series. Similarly, records of gaol deliveries for York are numerous
and concentrated in the fourteenth century, although some rolls do exist from both
the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Sessions of the peace from the fourteenth cen-
tury have also been included in this study.
43
Essex coroners’ rolls are somewhat lacking when compared to York; they cover
only the period 1369 to 1389. Records of gaol deliveries and eyres for Essex are
more numerous and cover most of the fourteenth century.
 introduction 17

because the royal government experimented with various forms of

peace-keeping, it seemed prudent to include also all extant sessions
of the peace for the two counties. Where the records are weak, cases
from coroners’ rolls outside of these regions have also been included
for discussion; however, these extraneous records do not form part
of the statistical analysis.44

The Challenges of Medieval Sources

None of these records is unproblematic. In the case of the ecclesiastical

records, the very humanity of the court’s decisions sometimes impedes
historical inquiry. To illustrate, an example: on November 11 of the
year 1474 John Colam of Stonegate, York, a goldsmith, came before
the archbishop of York in his court with an interesting request.
Accused of adultery with a married woman, Colam begged the court
to defer his compurgation in respect of the offence. His reason for
this request was quite simple: he feared such a public process might
alert his wife or the woman’s husband to their alleged infidelity and
he wished to avoid any unnecessary disgrace. Upon consideration of
the petition, the archbishop and Colam reached a compromise of
sorts. The court decreed that Colam should purge himself with his
hand alone and the offence would be concealed.45 For the archbishop,
the concession was presumably insignificant. Regardless of the process,
the outcome was the same: the alleged offender submitted to the
process of compurgation. For Colam, however, the bargain was much
more meaningful. It enabled him to keep his wife blissfully ignorant
of the possibility of any failings on her husband’s part.
Bearing in mind that adultery was one of the few acceptable
premises for an ecclesiastically sanctioned separation, the archbishop’s

44
All violent crimes appearing in the records of the royal courts for both Yorkshire
and the county of Essex were entered into a database. The data was then “dumped”
into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and sorted in a variety of ways (type of crime,
name of victim, location of crime, year of court appearance, etc.) in order to uncover
all those cases that appear more than once. This method also gave me an oppor-
tunity to discover any cases of husbands and wives who were accused of more than
one crime.
45
D/C AB 1, f. 146. This case is also cited and translated in J.S. Purvis, ed.,
A Mediaeval Act Book with some account of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction at York (York, 1943),
28. Colam’s request was not all that unusual. Purvis’s discussion of this register
includes at least two similar cases (28).
18 introduction

actions in this case seem contradictory at best. Why would an eccle-

siastical official knowingly permit an offender to conceal his sins from
his wife when his offence directly influenced her? Should he not
have felt obligated (morally, if not legally) to inform the wife of her
husband’s conduct? Allowing the husband to cover up an investiga-
tion into his sins seems almost to excuse them. At the very least,
the secrecy of the investigation would have diminished the effectiveness.
Public confession and contrition were fundamental aspects of medieval
theology: together the church intended them to humiliate the mis-
creant and thereby deter any future recurrences of the offence.
Without publicity, the presentment was merely a nuisance.
Colam’s affair was certainly not the only instance in the later
medieval period when the English church chose to overlook the reg-
ular process in order to avoid scandal. During his incumbency as
archbishop of York over the course of the last two decades of the
fifteenth century, Thomas of Rotherham opted for privacy in a mar-
ital issue on at least three occasions, when his decision would seem
merely to have paved the way for future litigation. In October 1486,
Rotherham permitted William Hawkesworth and Joan Alman of
Ribstone in Goldesburgh parish to marry without having published
the usual banns because “they fear that as Hawkesworth is a gen-
tleman and Alman of humble origin, the publication of banns would
cause unreasonable objections to be raised by his family.”46 Similarly,
in August 1491, Rotherham allowed Raynebrowne Bolling and Alice
Philip of the parish of Methley to elude the gossipmongers by mar-
rying without banns. They had lived together as husband and wife
for such a long time that it would have been a shock to their neigh-
bours to discover that they were not already married.47 Finally, in
April 1495 Rotherham also granted licence to the curate of Sutton
on Derwent to marry John Eglesfeld and Joan Thomson without the
requisite banns because Joan was visibly pregnant and publication
of the banns would only cause them scandal.48
The omission of a central part of the ritual for the solemnisation
of marriage ties all of these cases together. Publication of the banns
was required by the church in order to discover any impediments

46
Eric E. Barker, ed., The Register of Thomas Rotherham Archbishop of York, 1480–1500
(Canterbury and York Series, v. 69, 1976), nos. 1731, 216.
47
Barker, nos. 1849, 234.
48
Barker, nos. 660, 81.
 introduction 19

to the marriage. Failure to adhere to the formal process meant that

church officials risked contravening canonical regulations for marriage
concerning consanguinity, affinity or sponsorship. Nevertheless, the
church was willing to disregard the implications of neglecting to dis-
cover impediments when the situation might be publicly degrading.
While this approach may have laid the groundwork for future annul-
ments, it was the more sympathetic course of action.49
Herein lays the difficulty of using records of the medieval church
to uncover a definition of extreme cruelty. While royal justices were
bound by the formalities of common law procedure and custom,
there were no firm and fast rules governing the decisions made by
archbishops or bishops in their courts. Canon law functioned as a
guide in the day-to-day business of the court, but the English church
courts judged cases chiefly on their individual circumstances. At times,
a heartfelt plea or an honest face persuaded an ecclesiastical official
to act contrary to what he understood to be the church’s authoritative
position on an issue. England was not exceptional in this approach
to canon law. As Richard Helmholz has argued, “[t]he medieval
canon law was not meant to be taken as an ‘absolutely binding
statute law’ in the modern sense. It made provision for the force of
local custom; it left room for variant interpretations; it was willing
to tolerate much for the sake of peace; and it required the willing-
ness of local officials and litigants, with local interests and particular
quarrels to settle, before it could be put into effect.”50 The adaptability
of the court and compassion of its judges, particularly in matters of
marital difficulty, led Helmholz to observe, “[i]f we think of the
ecclesiastical judge as a rather heavy-handed marriage counsellor, we
come nearer the truth than if we see him as a man who limited
himself to the determination of points of law.”51 That is not to suggest
that court practice undermined canon law. As James Brundage has
written, there was “remarkably little judicial freewheeling and a great
deal more respectful attention to legal doctrine than one might have

49
Dispensations of this nature were the subject of discussion by the canonists.
James Brundage notes that Pierre de La Palude enumerated six situations in which
dispensations from the requirement of the banns usually were granted. Two of these
cases cited above fall into these categories. See James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and
Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 442.
50
R.H. Helmholz, Select Cases on Defamation to 1600 (London: Selden, Society,
1985), xxv.
51
Helmholz, Marriage Litigation, 101.
20 introduction

expected.”52 Nonetheless, the result of this approach to the law is

an array of sometimes seemingly arbitrary rulings, such as Colam’s
secret atonement or the omission of banns. This individualistic
approach presents its problems for a study of what medieval courts
interpreted as acceptable levels of violence. Yet, this very human
quality in both the writings of canon lawyers and the courts’ judge-
ments in some ways render their records more valuable to a social
historian. The decisions of ecclesiastical officials in their courts rep-
resent not only the mores of the church, but also the values of the
society in which they lived. The cases of Colam and the three cou-
ples substantiates J.S. Purvis’s claim that, in England at least, even
if the church courts intruded frequently and oppressively in the mar-
riages of the medieval laity, “the general impression is of lenience
rather than of severity.”53
Ecclesiastical records of matrimonial litigation, although astonishingly
full and revealing, also present a number of obstacles for a study of
abuse. In suing a plea in court, the plaintiff had specific goals, whether
these were a judicial separation, annulment, or forced reconciliation.
The objective inevitably shaped the litigation. The plaintiff offered
the court the kind of evidence necessary to obtain the desired sen-
tence. In her study of women’s testimonies in witchcraft trials, Diane
Purkiss has made a similar observation. She notes that women may
have “tried to adopt strategically the languages and discourses of the
elite in order to make their depositions persuasive.”54 Given the
plaintiff ’s distinct agenda, we cannot take at face value the evidence
presented in matrimonial litigation. Yet, as Tim Stretton has argued,
the biases of the records are not necessarily a hindrance.
The pleading strategies litigants and lawyers employed; inconsistencies
between rival accounts; the exaggeration and other methods of story
weaving they used to fashion cases; the facts they chose to stress or
to gloss over; the charges they were most anxious to allege or refute;
the stereotypes they drew upon when describing individuals and their
behaviour; how they dealt with questions of credit and reputation; even
the formulaic expressions that appear in pleading after pleading; all of

52
Brundage, 546.
53
Purvis, A Mediaeval Act Book, 5.
54
Diane Purkiss, “Women’s stories of witchcraft in early modern England: the
house, the body, the child,” Gender & History 7 (1995): 409.
 introduction 21

these can provide material for the historian, and offer an understanding
of which arguments and statements contemporaries considered to be
plausible, convincing, coherent or compelling.55
Even representatives of the medieval church recognised the possi-
bility that persons might knowingly manipulate the courts for their
own purposes. Thomas Chobham addressed the issue directly in his
manual for confessors. He wrote that a couple might work together
to hoodwink the courts by contriving a tale of impotence, or some
other such impediment, and thereby escape a jointly unsatisfactory
marriage. Because of the potential for deception, Chobham argued
that it was essential for the courts to meet with the couple’s neighbours
and inquire into the truthfulness of any claim.56 A case of spousal
abuse, then, may tell us more about opinions and beliefs concern-
ing violence in marriage, than actual instances of violence.
The records of the secular courts present many of the same prob-
lems, but for different reasons. First, it seems clear that the moral
character of the common law does not accurately reflect communal
values. While death was the only penalty available for felony, most
trial juries seemed unwilling to impose such a harsh punishment even
in cases of homicide. This reluctance would seem to imply that jurors
perceived death to be too harsh a penalty and worked to mitigate
the severity of the law. Thomas Green has explored the implications
of this predicament that he has described as ‘merciful nullification.’
He argues that jurors imposed their own communal sense of culpa-
bility by manipulating the verbal formulas of the indictments. Not
only were juries willing to fabricate scenarios of self-defence to secure
the acquittal of a defendant, but also they regularly included details
of pure invention to cast the defendant in a better light and accord-
ingly to excuse his/her actions.57
Second, by the late medieval period the English common law had
become a rigid and inflexible system of law that did not reflect the
needs of the people who used it. For example, while many litigants

55
Tim Stretton, “Social historians and the records of litigation,” Tid og Tanke 2
(1997): 29.
56
Thomas Chobham, Thomae de Chobham. Summa Confessorum, trans. F. Broomfield
(Louvain: Analecta Medieavalie Namurcensia, v. 25, 1968), 185.
57
See chapter two of Thomas A. Green, Verdict According to Conscience: Perspectives on
the English Criminal Trial Jury 1200–1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
22 introduction

believed that the wrongs they experienced were worthy of royal jus-
tice, the formality of the common law required them to argue that
the offence had been committed with force and arms (vi et armis) and
against the king’s peace (contra pacem), even if it had not.58 Legal
fictions of this nature, particularly in cases arising from marital vio-
lence, might be very misleading and thus require a healthy dose of
scepticism. Once again, in this respect Stretton reminds us that the
“relationship between disputes as they appear in court, and the quar-
rels which produced them” might be tenuous at best.59 A death by
misadventure might mask the homicide of a wife’s lover; the task of
the historian is to discover if the indictments or marginalia offer any
clues that might reveal the genuine story behind it and thus offer a
better understanding of communal values.
What is perhaps most important to remember is that the justices
assigned to deal with cases in the courts were well aware of the bla-
tant lies and manipulation of the law put forward by litigants. Yet,
it was not their responsibility to discern truth from lies. “The task
they set themselves was not to reconstruct precisely what happened
in each situation, but to decide which of the conflicting representa-
tions of the truth before them was the most convincing.”60 In terms
of a study of marital violence, these monitions are both significant
and relevant. Cases of spousal homicide in the royal courts, then,
offer more than a mere indication of rates of marital violence; because
the stories were shaped with the intention of persuading the king’s
justices, they are a useful guide to contemporary perceptions of abuse
at all levels of society.
A study of the ecclesiastical records allows an examination of con-
structions of marital violence in one context and provides an under-
standing of the prevalence of abuse at diminished levels; secular legal
records, on the other hand, provide a base for assessing legal con-
structions of spousal abuse in another context and for determining
approximate levels of extreme familial violence. Together, both kinds
of records offer a much more complete picture of spousal abuse in
the medieval context. A survey of the literature from the period aug-
ments this perspective. This study employs sermons, exempla, poems,

58
S.F.C. Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law (London: Butterworths,
1981), 283–313.
59
Stretton, 17.
60
Stretton, 22.
 introduction 23

songs, plays, laws, treatises and literature, in the hope of providing

a better understanding of medieval perceptions of abuse. Because
marital strife was such a common theme in medieval literature of
all forms, this study cannot possibly aspire to a comprehensive sur-
vey of the literature. Instead, a selection of works focusing specifically
on instances of physical violence and known to have been popular in
late medieval England have been investigated to enhance and com-
plement the legal evidence in this study.

York and Essex

This study concentrates primarily on the counties of York and Essex,

with some material from other counties to supplement the short-
comings of these records. These two counties were chosen for a vari-
ety of reasons. York and Essex represent the two geographic extremes
with respect to England’s legal centre. Because of its proximity to
London and Westminster, any changes in legal perspective or prac-
tice were disseminated quickly to the royal courts of Essex. Recent
studies of the courts of the northern counties, however, suggest that,
while York may have been quite distant from the legal centre, north-
erners had a very strong sense of justice and were willing to use the
royal courts to deal with the wide variety of problems associated
with living near the Scottish border. For example, Cynthia Neville
has noted that fifteenth-century northern juries frequently employed
the laws of treason to their advantage in order to penalise cross-
border criminal activity.61 Such an innovative use of the law courts
is an indication that Yorkshire juries may have adopted an equally
ingenious approach to cases of spousal abuse. With such different
social and political agendas, any similarities shared between these
two distant counties with respect to situations of domestic violence,
then, may represent a peculiarly English perspective. Perhaps more
significantly, the extant records for both counties are especially good.
Because of its size and the reliable preservation of its legal docu-
mentation, records of all types (royal, ecclesiastical, and manorial)
for the county of York in the later medieval period are plentiful and,

61
C.J. Neville, “The Law of Treason in the English Border Counties in the Later
Middle Ages,” Law and History Review 9 (1991): 1–30.
24 introduction

in the case of the royal and manorial records in particular, appear

to be fairly complete. Essex, on the other hand, with a much smaller
jurisdiction and population, offers a more meagre lot of records, par-
ticularly where the records of the church courts are concerned. In
this respect, in order to provide a broader perspective of southern
views of spousal abuse, records from the diocese of Canterbury have
also been included. Given the similarity of histories and political
activism in both Essex and Kent, the Canterbury diocesan records,
which include eastern Kent and parts of Sussex, seem like a logical
choice. With respect to the royal records, when compared to other
central counties in England the survival of Essex’s records seems to
be particularly good. As a result, these two counties with sheer num-
bers on their side present themselves as ideal candidates for a statis-
tically based study. Finally, Essex is an obvious choice for the study of
a woman-centred subject in this period of transition simply because
of its later history. As Alan Macfarlane has noted, Essex was a hotbed
of witchcraft prosecutions in the late sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies.62 Any abnormal attitudes towards women that might have
encouraged a wave of misogyny of this magnitude may have originated
in the period immediately preceding the Reformation. Thus, a study
of the late medieval courts of Essex offers a unique opportunity to
view a society that was becoming increasingly troubled by the activ-
ities of women. It seems reasonable to suppose that Essex’s method
of handling cases of domestic violence may reflect this attitude.
While not all of these hypotheses are borne out by the evidence,
the records of scold prosecutions discussed in Chapter Six reveals that
the two regions may have varied in the handling of aggressive women,
and that this approach may be reflected in rates of spousal violence.

Subjects of Study and Preliminary Findings

As the title of the first chapter announces, its goal is to set the scene,
by making the reader more familiar with medieval discourses of vio-
lence and passivity relating to wives, husbands and marriage.
Accordingly, the chapter begins with the difficult issue of the rules

62
Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: a regional and comparative
study (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).
 introduction 25

of coverture. The obstacles posed by the rules of coverture to mar-

ried women are central to an understanding of women as victims of
abuse; however, coverture also put husbands in a difficult situation
that helps to illuminate the role they played in domestic violence.
Married men were legally and socially responsible for their wives’
public and private behaviour. Thus, they became moral instructors
to their wives. At a time when force in marriage had ambiguous
limits, how did husbands know where to draw the line between dis-
cipline and abuse? The goal of this chapter is to explore the dis-
courses of marriage, governance and marital violence in this period,
in an attempt to understand how medieval men and women made
sense of this difficult situation.
Chapter Two discusses the regular process of dealing with mari-
tal violence and the frequency with which it appeared in the vari-
ous courts of medieval England. The legal records attest that litigants
evinced some measure of comfort with England’s expansive and het-
erogeneous legal system, appearing in a wide variety of fora to resolve
their disputes. This chapter endeavours to explore differences in the
nature and frequency of cases of abuse that made their way into the
medieval courts and explain why certain cases were addressed by
local instead of royal or ecclesiastical judges (and vice versa). Here,
it is important to note that those cases identifiable as instances of
physical violence in marriage represent only a small fraction of either
violence- or marriage-related cases. While this investigation examined
11,893 instances of violent actions (ranging from assault to rape to
homicide), and well over ten thousand cases relating to marriage
(bigamy, spousal non-cohabitation, restitution of conjugal rights, coerced
marriage, etc.)63 as well as several hundred cases of moral trans-
gressions, there are just over 300 identifiable instances of specifically
physical inter-spousal violence appearing in the various courts of
medieval York and Essex (with some cases from Kent). While this

63
Because I did not plan to do any statistical analysis of the various kinds of
cases of marital disharmony appearing in the church courts of medieval England,
I did not count every case of marital disharmony encountered in this study. As an
example, however, in his study J.S. Purvis uses one of the same ex officio act books
used in this study (York D & C AB/1). He notes that this contains a total of 3640
charges, of which 3236 were cases of fornication, adultery or similar moral offences,
all of which have an impact on marital harmony (see Purvis, A Mediaeval Act Book,
4). This was just one of the many act books, court books, and cause papers I had
the opportunity to explore in the course of this investigation.
26 introduction

admittedly modest sum represents a very small percentage of the

total number of cases before the courts in the fourteenth to early
sixteenth century, the very appearance of these few hundred cases
in England’s various courts demonstrate the existence of an established
legal method of dealing with marital violence. Moreover, as Chapter
Three discusses, the records permit the opportunity to examine the
causes of marital violence, although there is admittedly some dis-
crepancy between actual and perceived sources of marital tension.
The church courts, in particular, recognised spousal abuse as a symp-
tom of greater marital difficulties and worked to eliminate the causes
of this violence.
The question raised repeatedly by all this material is, what did
medieval men and women understand as “acceptable violence” in
marriage? Chapter Four attempts to respond to this query from a
micro-historical perspective by examining six applications for a judi-
cial separation on the grounds of cruelty. While these cases do not
offer definitive answers, they sketch types of behaviour that medieval
Englishmen and women may have considered unacceptable in mar-
riage. Chapter Five examines the role of the community in the reg-
ulation of marital violence, focusing specifically on the attitudes evoked
by their actions. Family, friends, neighbours and even jurors, as rep-
resentatives of their communities, played an integral role as marriage
counsellors, but also as instructors, teaching couples about contem-
porary expectations of gender roles. The final chapter demonstrates
that tensions within marriage were not static throughout the late
medieval period. After the first appearance of the Black Death in
the mid-fourteenth century, English society became less tolerant of
social misbehaviours, exemplified best by growing concerns over the
figure of the scold in late medieval England. Drawing the links
between increasing prejudice against women who voiced their opin-
ions, patriarchal supervision and domestic violence, the evidence pro-
poses a new source of marital tension and regional differences in
approaches to the regulation of spousal abuse.
A number of themes emerge from this study. As is also the case
in the modern period, the courts of medieval England were inade-
quately prepared to deal with spousal abuse. Because medieval canon-
ists and lawmakers alike failed to address the problem of marital
violence in a definitive way by explaining precisely what they con-
sidered unlawful or unreasonable in terms of marital violence, there
were no obvious limits to the castigation of wives. Such an ambigu-
 introduction 27

ous definition of abuse meant that the courts did not hold most hus-
bands legally responsible for their violent ways. Yet, as Hanawalt
has proposed, court officials may have believed that, in general, legal
resolution was not required because spousal abuse was a matter for
village regulation. Families, neighbours and friends felt obliged to
participate actively in the regulation of violent marriages; and it was
only after a man’s behaviour was perceived to have exceeded the
capacities of unofficial regulation that he was presented (by these
same individuals) before a court of law. The participation of respectable
local people did not end there. As witnesses, and inquest or pre-
senting jurors, members of the couple’s village helped to shape the
case for the court in order to secure the kind of sentence they believed
to be justified. As trial jurors in the royal courts, they awarded appro-
priate sentences. As spectators to the punishment of convicted abusers,
they helped to reinforce and disseminate the values of their com-
munities. Such a strong system of checks and balances may have curbed
or even eliminated much of the violence before it reached the point
of homicide. Moreover, the manifestly local resolution of spousal
abuse reinforces the importance of the community in medieval society,
reminding critics that although both “ ‘community’ and ‘popular opin-
ion’ ” are “rather slippery concepts,” they are “nonetheless critical
to our understanding of medieval and early modern local societies.”64
Court records and literature together offer valuable insight into
general attitudes towards the causes of marital violence. The shrewish
wife portrayed best in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath or the Wakefield Flood
play was not merely a literary motif; popular society blamed wives’
scolding tongues for provoking the wrath of their husbands. The
finding that conflicts most with our modern sensibilities, however, is
that the courts may even have held rebellious wives accountable for
the abuse inflicted upon them. In addition, adultery, also a frequent
cause of marital violence, was treated much differently in the Middle
Ages than in the early modern period. Laura Gowing observes that
while the early modern courts permitted husbands to separate from
their wives by bringing accusations of adultery against them, wives
might only hope for a separation if they could prove their husbands

64
Shannon McSheffrey, “Jurors, Respectable Masculinity, and Christian Morality:
A Comment on Marjorie McIntosh’s Controlling Misbehavior,” Journal of British Studies
37 (1998): 270.
28 introduction

were a threat to their lives. These findings stand in stark contrast to

the medieval period. In theory, the medieval canonists understood
adultery to be acceptable grounds for separation; in practice, the English
church rarely (if ever) deemed adultery acceptable in and of itself to
justify breaking the sacrament of marriage. Moreover, the evidence
of the York cause papers would seem to suggest that male sexual
reputation was also integral to the marital and social order, although
perhaps not to the same extent as women’s. Gowing’s work, then,
illustrates that this particular method of handling cases of judicial
separations by the ecclesiastical courts was unique to medieval England.
Perhaps most important, this book contributes to the small but
growing field of masculinity studies. Spousal abuse in the Middle
Ages was as much about men as it was about women. Medieval
England forced men to shoulder a double burden. Not only was a
man expected to govern himself appropriately, he was expected also
to govern his household. The inability to do both according to the
standards of the community was interpreted as a hallmark of male
inadequacy. Marital masculine self-identity also was tied implicitly to
a husband’s ability to govern the conduct of his wife: any rebellious
or disobedient behaviour from a wife was perceived as evidence of
failed masculinity. Yet, a man who disciplined his wife too enthusi-
astically was subject to the same ridicule. Without any firm guide-
lines to teach the limits of castigation, a man’s own actions and those
of the people closest to him constantly endangered his communal
standing. As a result, any investigation of the language medieval men
and women used to describe marital violence must be sensitive to
male honour. As Elizabeth Foyster has maintained for the early mod-
ern period, men may have purposely avoided beating their wives
simply because they feared how such an act might reflect on their
reputations.65 Similarly, men who did beat their wives were in a con-
stant battle to reconstruct the narrative of their actions and thereby
cast themselves in the best possible light.
At the very least, the evidence of the various courts and litera-
ture of the period do not confirm Stone’s worst fears. Medieval soci-
ety did not encourage or merely tolerate marital violence. There was
an established multi-layered process set up to deal with spousal abuse

65
Elizabeth Foyster, “Male Honour, Social Control and Wife Beating in Late
Stuart England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th series, 6 (1996): 215–24.
 introduction 29

in later medieval England. The approach was far from foolproof,

and it expounded a much different understanding of what consti-
tuted violence than we might today. Medieval England sanctioned,
and even anticipated, some violence in marriage. A good husband
did not beat his wife, but he knew when to use violence and how
much force to employ. Moreover, the records suggest that English
communities did not expect wives merely to submit to their hus-
bands’ violence. Wife-beating smeared male reputation; allegations
of abuse, then, offered wives a chance to reclaim their own honour,
and obtain a viable solution to marital misery.
 CHAPTER ONE

SETTING THE SCENE:

DISCOURSES OF PASSIVITY AND VIOLENCE

The rules of coverture have dominated discussions of women’s history

in the past few decades. Historians have explored extensively the
vulnerability of women under a law that fictitiously considers husband
and wife as one person represented by the husband. Upon marriage,
a woman lost many of her former rights to property: goods and
chattels immediately passed permanently into the hands of her hus-
band, while both real property (land) and chattels real (leases) passed
into his control for the duration of their marriage. Wives were not
able to accept inheritances or gifts, even from their husbands, nor
could they make wills defendable at common law.1 The rules were
even more complicated when it came to lawsuits. In civil law, no
married woman could sue or be sued apart from her husband. In
criminal law, England permitted wives slightly more leeway: a mar-
ried woman could sue for the death of her husband, or bodily injury
(usually defined as rape).2
In terms of marital disharmony, the disadvantages women suffered
because of the rules of coverture are immediately apparent. A victim
of abuse might not desert or abandon her husband easily, because she
lacked free access to support. Although the church courts helped to

1
Emma Hawkes, “ ‘[S]he will . . . protect and defend her rights boldly by law
and reason . . .’: Women’s Knowledge of Common Law and Equity Courts in Late-
Medieval England,” in Medieval Women and the Law, ed. Noël James Menuge
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), 146–7. R.H. Helmholz has argued that mar-
ried women might make wills of their own, but that it was rare. See his “Married
Women’s Wills in Later Medieval England,” in Wife and Widow in Medieval England,
ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 165–82.
2
In practice, the king’s courts did not apply the rules in such a strict manner.
Royal justices sometimes allowed married women to bring a broad range of crim-
inal appeals to court, the assumption being that it is better to catch a criminal on
a woman’s advice than to not catch a criminal at all. See Patricia R. Orr, “Non
Potest Appellum Facere: Criminal Charges Women could not—but did—Bring in
Thirteenth-Century English Royal Courts of Justice,” The Final Argument: The Imprint
of Violence on Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Donald J. Kagay and
L.J. Andrew Villalon (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998), 141–162.
 setting the scene 31

create and enforce maintenance agreements for both separated wives

and the wives of delinquent husbands, the courts were incapable of
enforcing their judgments. An impoverished woman abandoned by
her husband, then, was in a serious bind. Even the wages of a hard-
working singlewoman in the Middle Ages were often not enough to
support one person.3 Not only was a deserted wife incapable of
financial independence, then, but she might not accept a gift of sup-
port from a friend or family member without the fear that her hus-
band might claim it for his own later. Where allegations focused on
physical, rather than economic, abuse, women were also disadvantaged.
Theoretically, the common law permitted a woman to sue her spouse
on the grounds of assault. A writ even existed specifically for this
purpose. The writ required a husband “to treat and govern her [his
wife] well and honestly, and to do no injury or ill to her body other
than that permitted lawfully and reasonably to a husband for the
purpose of control and punishment of his wife.”4 Yet, wives seem to
have rarely, if ever, exercised their rights in this matter. While the
common law acknowledged spousal abuse as a problem and so pro-
vided wives with a loophole, the rules of coverture may have been
so ingrained in medieval society that plaintiffs, and the courts, were
simply uncomfortable with the idea of wives suing their husbands.
Much less time has been spent on the burden imposed by the
rules of coverture on men in medieval English society; a study of
power relations in marriage, however, must address this query. Being
the legal and social representative of both spouses had its drawbacks.
The law held husbands accountable for their wives’ actions, regardless
of whether they were accomplices or even witnesses to the act. The
records of the English courts exhibit a determination to place the blame
for a married woman’s actions on her husband. In this respect, the
rules of coverture were not limited to the courts of common law.
The Colchester borough rolls boast a number of examples. In a case
from 1311, the court summoned a couple for assault on a woman
in the street. With the unfolding of the tale, it is revealed that the
husband had very little to do with the crime:

3
Mavis E. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 33–34. See also Sharon Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender,
Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 23.
4
Frederick Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time
of Edward I, 2nd ed. (2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 2:436.
32 chapter one

Joan, wife of William Sprot, complains of Richard le Blunt and Benedicta

his wife on plea of trespass, owing to the said Richard failing to chas-
tise his wife, when she the said Joan was on the King’s way opposite
her house near Stanwell, the said Benedicta came up and attacked
her, to the damage of half a mark.5
This is not the only example of a husband blamed for “failing to chas-
tise his wife.” In a case from the following year, we find a similar
situation:
Joan Pakes by the said Peter, her attorney, complains that as she was
in the king’s highway near “Berestal” in Colchester market, the said
Clemence came up, for want of chastisement of the said Guy [her hus-
band], and assaulted the said Joan, striking her with her fist and a
stick and tearing her cloak and scarf to the damage of 40sh.
The said Guy came and confessed to the said assault and begs for
mercy. It was considered that Joan might recover the said 40sh.6
Analogous cases appear in 1333 and 1334.7 While these four cases
are the only instances in which the husband’s fault was spelled out
this clearly, the Colchester borough records document at least two
other assaults by women on their own in which the husband was
held jointly responsible.8 This phenomenon was not confined to Essex.
The Yorkshire manorial records contain a smattering of similar sit-
uations, indicating that, here, too, people were concerned that hus-
bands maintain a degree of control over their wives’ actions. In 1339,
when Joan, wife of Adam son of Jordan of Horbiry, called Agnes
Hughet a false thief and a jade, she and her husband both ended
up before the Wakefield court denying the charges.9 The court at
Bradford in 1347 asked both William Tiel and his wife Joan to
respond to Agnes Chapman’s allegations that Joan had beaten her.10

5
Isaac Herbert Jeayes, ed. and trans., Court Rolls of the Borough of Colchester, 3 vols
(Colchester: W. Gurney, 1921–41), 1.56.
6
Jeayes, 1.86.
7
Jeayes, 1.114 and 1.135.
8
Jeayes, 3.9, 16.
9
K.M. Troup, ed. and trans., The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield from October
1338 to September 1340 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 2nd ser.,
v. 12, 1999), 47.
10
TNA DL 30/129/1957, m. 16. A husband’s responsibility for his wife’s behav-
iour even stretched into the realm of religious belief. Shannon McSheffrey notes
that the church held husbands accountable for their wives’ heresy. In her investi-
gation into Lollardy in late medieval England, she notes a number of cases where
church courts fined husbands for concealing the opinions of their wives. The court
ordered one husband in particular, whose wife was up on charges of heresy, to
 setting the scene 33

These cases demonstrate that both the church and the laity inter-
preted a wife’s independent behaviour—in thought, or action—as
an outward sign of poor governance. Any husband incapable of con-
trolling his wife was deemed a poor husband, subject to not only
public ridicule, but also hefty fines, public processions or time in
prison, all because of his wife’s unlawful or immoral actions.
A strong sense of married masculine self-identity rested on a man’s
ability to govern his wife and household appropriately. Yet, this goal
held many pitfalls for men. First, how did medieval society define
‘reasonable’ force in terms of governance? Not only is this elusive to
students of medieval history, but it seems that many medieval men,
when faced with a range of beliefs on the subject evident in diverse
sources from sermon literature to legal treatises to theatre, also expe-
rienced some uncertainty in determining this for themselves. More
important still, while the vision of the good wife in the medieval
period praised her obedience and passivity, the literature of the period
buttresses the idea that medieval wives were anything but. The many
depictions of Uxor Noe from the popular late medieval passion plays
are a satirical reminder of the incongruence of the theory and prac-
tice of marriage. These images also offer frustrated husbands some
guidance in how to deal with their wives: a firm (but not too firm)
hand was the rule.

The Limits of Castigation: The English Church

“[I]f she is foolish, moderately and decently correct her, and if nec-
essary castigate her.”11 This advice to husbands from Thomas
Chobham’s manual for confessors (1215) made it clear that physical
correction is a last resort; husbands should implement it only after
‘moderate’ and ‘decent’ attempts had already failed. He emphasised
this point by immediately following his advice with the statement
that a husband should care for his wife above all else “because noth-
ing should be more dear to him than his wife.”12 A good husband,

“manage his wife properly and honestly.” See Shannon McSheffrey, Gender and
Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities, 1420–1530 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 94–5.
11
Thomas Chobham, Thomae de Chobham. Summa Confessorum, trans. F. Broomfield
(Louvain: Analecta Medieavalie Namurcensia, v. 25, 1968), 375.
12
Chobham, 375.
34 chapter one

then, knew when to use force and how much force to use. In many
ways, Chobham’s vision of marital relations reflects the tenor of the
church’s general stance on the issue. While Chobham envisioned
instances in which physical force was required, he was far from being
an advocate of wife beating. In fact, Chobham adopted what might
be interpreted as a proto-feminist stance on marriage. He noted that
the entire institution of marriage was created around women, and
that it is called “matrimony rather than patrimony because the woman
suffers greater distress in bearing, generating and nurturing the chil-
dren.”13 For that reason, the wife plays a central role in the entire
process and demands respect. Chobham also claimed for women an
important voice in some very public issues. He wrote that
In imposing penance, it should always be enjoined upon women to be
preachers to their husbands, because no priest is able to soften the heart
of a man the way his wife can. For this reason, the sin of a man is
often imputed to his wife if, through her negligence, he is not corrected.
Even in the bedroom, in the midst of their embraces, a wife should
speak alluringly to her husband, and if he is hard and unmerciful, and
an oppressor of the poor, she should invite him to be merciful; if he
is a plunderer, she should denounce plundering; if he is avaricious,
she should arouse generosity in him, and she should secretly give alms
from their common property, supplying the alms that he omits. For
it is permissible for a woman to expend much of her husband’s property,
without his knowing, in ways beneficial to him and for pious causes.14
Chobham’s portrayal of the wife as an influential figure, characterised
by economic independence and a greater tendency towards piety
than men, is important principally because of the way he chose to
disseminate it. Confessors’ manuals, like Thomas of Chobham’s pop-
ular work, are one of the few media through which medieval his-
torians can begin to appreciate religion as the clergy preached it to
the public.15 Theological debates centred on the Aristotelian doctrine

13
Chobham, 145.
14
Chobham, 375. Translation taken from Sharon Farmer, “Persuasive Voices:
Clerical Images of Medieval Wives,” Speculum 61.3 (1986): 517.
15
Chobham’s Summa Confessorum “reached a wide audience in the medieval world.”
Of the more than one hundred surviving manuscripts, at least two were printed in
the 1480s, substantiating the enduring nature of the work. Moreover, many of these
remaining manuscripts were used in priories and colleges “where they would have
been accessible to a large readership”. See Michael M. Sheehan, “Choice of Marriage
Partner in the Middle Ages: Development and Mode of Application of a Theory
of Marriage,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, n.s. 1 (1978): 25. This arti-
cle also appears in his Marriage, Family, and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 87–117.
 setting the scene 35

of woman as a deficient man, while intellectually stimulating, contribute

very little to a clear understanding of popular misogyny. Confessors’
manuals, on the other hand, allow an exploration into medieval pas-
toral care and the precise nature of clerical representations of women
as they were conveyed to the people, which often contrasted with
the more dogmatic texts. Furthermore, they demonstrate widespread
ecclesiastical interest in the practical problems of marriage, rather
than merely focusing on its spiritual aspects. Parish priests made an
intelligible distinction between ‘women’ and ‘wives’ in their sermons;
the latter received much fairer treatment than the former.16 In his
advice to parish priests, Chobham did not abandon contemporary
notions of feminine vices. He simply reinterpreted them as they relate
to wives. As Sharon Farmer has noted, “[i]n their use of speech and
sexual enticements to manipulate men, the pious wives of the eleventh-,
twelfth-, and early-thirteenth-century sources resemble contemporary
depictions of Eve, who compelled Adam ‘to obey her voice rather
than the Word of God.’ ”17 Nevertheless, Chobham readily translated
womanly weapons into positive attributes, providing a married woman
wielded them in accordance with Christian beliefs. Chobham’s per-
spective on marital discipline sheds light on the limits of castigation.
He expected husbands to employ physical force to instruct wives on
appropriate conduct; and yet, given the greater proclivity of wives
towards pious behaviour, a husband must have needed sound
justification for any force of great magnitude he chose to apply.18
Chobham’s position may have developed out of Gratian’s Decretum.
A gloss of Gratian’s twelfth-century work states, “a man may chastise
his wife and beat her for her own correction; for she is of his house-
hold, and therefore the lord may chastise his own. . . . so likewise the
husband is bound to chastise his wife in moderation.”19 Although

16
See D.L. D’Avray Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass Communication in a Culture
Without Print (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 283; Rüdiger Schnell, “The
Discourse on Marriage in the Middle Ages,” Speculum 73 (1998): 771–86.
17
Farmer, “Persuasive Voices,” 539.
18
It is important to note that Chobham’s vision of the wife as being more pious
than the husband is not an isolated aberration. In her analysis of John of Bromyard’s
compendium of 1300 exempla, Ruth Mazo Karras notes that charity “appears as a
characteristically feminine virtue” and that “Bromyard often depicts women as more
charitable than their husbands, sometimes criticizing the latter’s greed.” See Ruth
Mazo Karras, “Gendered Sin and Misogyny in John of Bromyard’s Summa Predicantium,”
Traditio 47 (1992): 244.
19
As cited and translated in G.G. Coulton, ed., Life in the Middle Ages (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1931), 3.119.
36 chapter one

the gloss fails to offer a clear definition of ‘moderation,’ the Decretum

does imply what the term might encompass. For example, the canons
of the first council of Toledo (A.D. 400), included in Gratian’s Decretum,
discuss acceptable discipline of clerical wives. The council wrote:
If the wives of any clerics have transgressed, their husbands may use
non-deadly force in order to deprive them of any license to misbehave
further. The husband may exercise the power to confine them, to place
them under constraints within the house, compelling them to saving,
not deadly, fasts, with the result that poor clerks might reciprocally
give aid to each other if they lack household servants. They should
not, however, take food with these wives who have sinned, unless their
penitential acts should happen to return them to the fear of God.20
Next to Chobham’s Summa, then, the Decretum provides an even more
lucid statement on the acceptability of marital violence. Although it
also advocated physical violence when necessary, in this passage the
Decretum detailed a variety of other kinds of force a husband might
employ in order to mend his wife’s unruly ways, underscoring strongly
that violence is a last resort. Gratian’s glossator and Chobham shared
a very middle-of-the-road attitude on marital violence: they believed
that limited physical force was acceptable, on condition that it be
restricted to moral education.
Not all canonists agreed with such a temperate position. The
anonymous author of the Summa Parisiensis (1160) “was prepared to
authorize clerical husbands to beat their peccant wives very harshly
indeed (acerrime flagellari ), provided only that they stopped short of
killing them.”21 In general, the moderation advocated by both Chobham
and the Decretum would seem to illustrate a broader perspective
embraced by the church. In his Ordinary Gloss, Johannes Teutonicus
noted that, “[a] husband could correct his wife solely for the reasons
laid down by the law. If he exceeded his authority he became liable
to punishment himself: the courts could fine him up to one-third of
the property he had contributed to his marriage (donatio propter nuptias)

20
Emil Friedberg, ed., Decretum Gratiana (Leipzig: University of Leipzig, 1879),
C. 33 q. 2 c. 10. The gloss presents this passage as a response to the question ‘how
are clerks to operate their households if their wives are doing penance?’ The answer,
then, is that if they do not have servants, they should seek the help of other poor
clerks.
21
As discussed in James A. Brundage, “Domestic Violence in Classical Canon
Law,” in Violence in Medieval Society, ed. Richard W. Kaeuper (Woodbridge: Boydell
Press, 2000), 187.
 setting the scene 37

or, if he had failed to make such a contribution, he might forfeit

up to a quarter of his net worth.”22 The records of York and Essex
do not provide any examples of the courts carrying out such a pow-
erful threat; nevertheless, that a prominent canonist believed rules
existed for the disciplining of wives and that these rules must be
observed is significant in and of itself.
The notion that physical force is acceptable only when all else fails
is repeated in the work of the thirteenth-century Genoese archbishop
Jacopa da Varazze, usually identified as Januensis. He advised that
husbands turn first to Christianity in the moral correction of their
wives: “but if she cannot learn to blush with fear of God, let her
grow red with the switch.”23 Januensis gave emphasis to the role of
the husband as head of the household. He explained that a wife’s
insubordination earned the same kind of punishment as a servant,
“since she does not know how to feel shame like a free woman.”24
His vision of marriage, like Chobham’s, was not all one-sided. Januensis
ascribed to women an instrumental role in marriage over their hus-
bands’ morality, particularly in the case of fornicating men. He urged
wives to take an active position on this matter by throwing their
husbands out of the home or by turning to the bishop for help. The
reluctance of many women to do so arises, in part, “because they
are frozen by fear, since they fear to be beaten by their husbands—
but they ought more to fear a God who perceives what they do
than a husband who beats them.”25 Finally, Januensis brought the
argument full circle by reminding women that, irrespective of their
husbands’ opinions in this matter, wives should not act as servants
to their husbands in matters of morality.
Januensis made clear what Chobham only hinted at. Clerical writers
perceived domestic violence as an abuse of the hierarchical relationship

22
Brundage, 187.
23
As cited and translated in Andrew Galloway, “Marriage Sermons, Polemical
Sermons, and The Wife of Bath’s Prologue: A Generic Excursus,” Studies in the Age of
Chaucer 14 (1992): 18. Galloway notes that at least twenty-two collections of Januensis’s
sermons are extant from later medieval England, as well as manifold adaptations
and derivations of his work by English preachers, demonstrating that his sermons
were very influential in late medieval English society. In fact, Galloway proposes
that Januensis’s sermons on women may have provided the base for the Wife of
Bath’s discussion of marriage in The Canterbury Tales, and that the Wife’s last husband,
Jankyn, is intended to be a “parodically vernacularized version of Januensis” (19).
24
Galloway, 19.
25
Galloway, 12.
38 chapter one

within marriage: men beat their wives in order to gain ultimate con-
trol, and so that society will not hold them accountable for their
actions. Both Chobham and Januensis make us manifestly aware of
just how complicated was the structure of a marital relationship in
the Middle Ages. While the church and its representatives envisioned
a hierarchy of gender-specific roles, they may not have expected dis-
parity between husband and wife as great as was often the case.
The work of one of Januensis’s contemporaries, a Polish Dominican
friar named Peregrinus, who compiled a remarkably popular collec-
tion of Latin sermons, also addresses the complicated nature of the
marital hierarchy and its potential for abuse. The sermons in his
collection reveal an even more complex, but intuitive, perspective
on the matter of marital relations. Peregrinus argued that a husband
should “love his wife without speaking any evil words to her or strik-
ing her.”26 Like Januensis, he believed that the source of violence
within marriage was founded unquestionably in the power relation-
ship. He wrote,
[y]et I fear that there are many husbands who are so angry after a
visit to an inn that they enjoy beating their wives. They do not dare to
strike those who insulted them because they know that, if they do, they
will be beaten in return. But after they return home, in their rage, they
take all the wrong they have suffered in the inn out on their wives:
they grab them by the hair and shove them around the room. Because
of this, your love must be such that you do not treat her poorly either
in word or deed.27
Peregrinus’s analysis is significant in a number of ways. First, he
attempted to understand the psychology of abuse. Peregrinus saw
that marital violence is associated wholly to a strong sense of male
insecurity. He is not the only medieval sermon writer to have reached
this conclusion. Berthold of Regensburg similarly shifted the blame
for violence to husbands, by arguing that “[o]utside the house some
husbands cut a pathetic figure; inside the house, they acted like
lions.”28 Berthold perceived what modern studies of spousal abuse
have stated, that men beat their wives because it makes them feel

26
As cited and translated by Schnell, 772. Galloway notes that there are at least
six surviving English manuscripts that contain Peregrinus’s sermon cycle, leading us
to the conclusion that his work was probably well known in England as well as on
the continent. Galloway, 8.
27
Schnell, 772.
28
Schnell, 784.
 setting the scene 39

like ‘real men.’ Both Berthold and Peregrinus explained the male
psyche in a remarkably profound way. In locating the source of wife
abuse in the projection of male inadequacies, they have brought to
light a contemporary crisis in gender identity.
Second, Peregrinus and Berthold together suggest that husbands
may have found themselves torn between two discrete, and sometimes
competing, discourses of masculinity. That men chose to reassert their
masculinity in the home through violence argues that it was a vital
component of general late medieval expectations of masculinity, and
that these conceptions of gender identity were both internalised and
widespread. Recent studies confirm that medieval English society
thought violence was integral to maleness. P.H. Cullum has argued
that “two of the activities which most obviously characterized the
ideal of masculinity. . . . [were] fighting and reproducing.”29 Similarly,
Ruth Mazo Karras, in her study of university students in the Middle
Ages, noted that students found themselves in a very complex situ-
ation. Students, who belonged to (albeit lower orders of ) the clergy,
were uncomfortable with the idea of renouncing their masculinity
by leading chaste, peaceful lives for the duration of their studies. All
students were forbidden to carry weapons, but because this was such
a key feature of aristocratic masculinity, many young clerics often
fell short of expectations, and found themselves arrested for carrying
daggers, shields, and swords. Karras argued that misbehaviour of this
nature represents a “need to demonstrate masculinity through par-
ticipation in brawls,” just like any other (lay)man of their age.30 The
university students in this situation exemplify the difficulties associ-
ated with being male; “important in the dynamics of gendering is the
competition between different notions of acceptable masculine behav-
iour.”31 Violence in the home during the medieval era may have been
another example of the unfortunate outcome of clashing discourses.

29
P.H. Cullum, “Clergy, Masculinity and Transgression in Late Medieval England,”
in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D.M. Hadley (New York: Longman, 1999), 182.
30
Ruth Mazo Karras, “Sharing Wine, Women, and Song: Masculine Identity
Formation in the Medieval European Universities,” in Becoming Male in the Middle
Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland, 1997), 190.
31
D.M. Hadley, “Introduction: Medieval Masculinities,” in Masculinity in Medieval
Europe, 4. See also Shannon McSheffrey, “Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval
London Civic Culture: Governance, Patriarchy and Reputation,” in Conflicted Identities
and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. Jacqueline Murray (New York:
Garland, 1999), 245.
40 chapter one

Men constantly faced conflicting expectations of what it meant to

be a man, but also what it meant to be a husband. As P.H. Cullum
has noted, at times, “[s]ome forms of masculinity carry more weight
than others.”32 Domestic violence may represent an instance when
one discourse of masculinity triumphed over another. Wife abuse
occurred when a man’s masculinity temporarily overpowered his mar-
ital self-identity; or, in broader terms, when the aggressive male tri-
umphed over the husband as educator and protector.
Like Chobham and Gratian, Peregrinus represented the more wide-
spread notion that physical force is a weapon of final recourse. He
cautioned husbands to use force judiciously and only for the purposes
of chastisement. This preoccupation with the appropriate use of phys-
ical compulsion provides the historian with an opportunity to under-
stand better actual cases of abuse from the period. Why did men
sometimes defend their actions as castigation, not abuse? Because
the church argued that moral discipline was the only appropriate
grounds for which physical force might be employed. As we will see
in Chapter Four, husbands commonly appropriated wife chastise-
ment as justification for their violent actions. In its exhortations
against the immoderate use of force in wife chastisement, then, the
medieval church not only recognised this misuse of ecclesiastical
teachings, it also isolated and challenged a dominant justification for
what it perceived as inexcusable behaviour.
Peregrinus argued that a wife should not be expected merely to
submit to her husband’s cruelty. He proffered women the story of
two squirrels as a form of instruction: “The male squirrel will not
let the female eat the nuts they have collected together. He stands
for harsh and unkind husbands. The female may create a hole from
below the store of nuts. When the male starts eating from above,
then she starts eating from below. The moral is that wives may find
ways round an unreasonable husband’s authority.”33
In noting that “many husbands . . . are so angry after a visit to an
inn that they enjoy beating their wives,” Peregrinus also hints at the
possibility that marital violence may be linked intimately with alco-
hol abuse, a factor that has certainly proven to be true in modern
society. This kind of insight helps to fill in the gaps in the legal

32
Cullum, 193.
33
D’Avray, 9.
 setting the scene 41

records. While cases of marital violence at law fail to blame alcohol

for a husband’s actions, Peregrinus’s shrewd assumption, most likely
buttressed by his experience in the confessional, opens a window
onto the external factors influencing marital violence. Not only may
alcohol have been to blame, but the ultra-masculine atmosphere of
the medieval inn also may have contributed to a competitive spirit
among husbands as patriarchs. Certainly, such conditions might pro-
duce the kind of anti-feminine climate often associated with the
Middle Ages.
One point to which Chobham, Gratian and the various sermon
writers seem to agree is that a man’s use of violence in marriage is
tied to his reputation as a good husband. Male honour was depen-
dant on a legitimate use of physical force in the household. This
code of male conduct was not merely theoretical; the language of
abuse employed in the church courts of medieval England reflects
this code. Because the medieval church treated spousal abuse as a
delicate matter, the records are sometimes quite cryptic when refer-
ring to abuse. For example, in the case of Thomas de Craven of
York the records simply allude to his abuse by requiring Thomas to
treat his wife “decently and honourably.”34 However, the case is
immediately identifiable as an instance of abuse because the records
are so formulaic in nature. Violent husbands were regularly ordered
to treat their wives decenter et honeste. When Richard Machonne was
presented before the court because he “exercises cruelty” in his treat-
ment of his wife Alice, the record notes “he beat and castigated her
excessively and indecently”; he was also commanded to treat his wife
“decently and honourably.”35 As Richard’s case demonstrates, the
opposite was also true. ‘Indecent’ behaviour seems to have been a
euphemism employed by the courts for abuse. A consistory court act
book similarly reports John of Kellingley to have conducted himself
indecently with his wife because “he treated her cruelly and beat her
in an inappropriate manner.”36 While the records are vague about
what decent and honourable behaviour towards a wife might con-
stitute, they do confirm that beatings and excessive chastisement were
not acceptable behaviour and were thus a stain on a man’s honour.

34
York M 2(1) c, fo. 30.
35
York M 2(1) c, fo. 23.
36
York M 2(1) c, fo. 21.
42 chapter one

The medieval church held high expectations for husbands and

they were willing to enforce these expectations. It understood phys-
ical force as an important tool of moral instruction; at the same
time, the church made it clear that husbands who employed force
too readily should expect to explain themselves. Sermon writers also
offer some justification for why men beat their wives: suffering from
a sense of male inadequacy, some husbands may have attempted to
demonstrate their manhood through aggression in the home. While
violence may have been an acceptable and even encouraged part of
public masculinity, in private, immoderate violence was not excusable.
Married masculine honour relied on a delicate balance of instruction
and force; and the church courts were more than willing to hold
men accountable for their inability to adhere to the virtues of mar-
ital masculinity.

The Limits of Castigation: Secular Law

Secular law in medieval England shared many of the same ideas

about violence in marriage; its focus, however, was recognisably dis-
tinct from that of the church. While the church concerned itself
chiefly with the sin and dishonour of wife-beaters, secular law focused
on the responsibility of husbands to discipline their wives. This gap
between ecclesiastical and legal treatment of the subject is not sur-
prising. Because the rules of coverture held men accountable for
their wives’ wrongful activities, courts of law needed to emphasise a
husband’s duty to discipline his wife. Constant reminders of a man’s
marital duty were fundamental to keeping the peace. For example,
J.B. Given has argued, “the village community would on occasion
punish women who had violated one of its regulations by ordering
the errant woman’s husband to beat her.”37 Although Given’s evidence
for this broad statement is narrowly based on a single entry in the
Chalgrave (Bedfs.) manorial rolls, the ruling is significant. It suggests
that the courts may have expected husbands to discipline their wives
using physical force. The cases of husbands reported for “failing to

37
J.B. Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth Century England (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1977), 195. Given’s evidence comes from an analysis of Marian
K. Dale, ed., Court Roll of Chalgrave Manor, 1278–1313 (Bedfordshire Historical Record
Society, v. 26, 1948).
 setting the scene 43

chastise” their wives from the Colchester borough cases support this
belief.38 In the village setting, relying on the household hierarchy for
the discipline of social misbehaviours was the most effective means
of enforcing village custom in the absence of a more official mechanism.
The rules of coverture, in this respect, were a powerful tool of social
control. If husbands were responsible for the misbehaviours of their
wives, then they might be more inclined to control that behaviour
before it resulted in a suit at law.
The expectation that husbands maintain a firm hand when deal-
ing with their wives is ubiquitous in the legal treatises of the late
medieval period. Legal treatises are a vast repository of knowledge
concerning contemporary juridical practices, chiefly because the sub-
ject matter of these works is thought to have drawn heavily on actual
cases adjudicated by medieval English courts. Thus, the legal trea-
tises provide a good grasp of contemporary practices for a system
of law that was largely unwritten. Although a discussion of spousal
abuse is absent in these treatises, the use of castigation is implied in
discussions of a married woman’s responsibility in crimes committed
in the company of her husband. Both the late thirteenth-century
Mirror of Justices and the early thirteenth-century treatise On the Laws
and Customs of England, traditionally attributed to Bracton, approach
this subject in a profound way. The Mirror of Justices is succinct but
explicit: if a married woman stands accused of consenting to her
husband’s felonious activities, “she may answer that she is under her
husband’s rod and that she may not contradict [him].”39 The Mirror
goes on to declare that if her actions were committed “without her
husband’s knowledge, then she must answer.” While this perspective
was useful as a legal strategy for women wishing to evade the con-
sequences of their actions, it surely paints an unbalanced picture of
medieval marriage. The description of a married woman as “under
her husband’s rod” argues that the courts anticipated the use of
physical force by husbands in the good management of a home.
Bracton adopts a much gentler approach than that espoused by the
Mirror of Justices; at the same time, it is redolent of Chobham’s expec-
tations of female moral superiority. The treatise approaches the sub-
ject with the simple but vague statement that a man’s “wife will not

38
Above on p. 32.
39
Andrew Horne, The Mirror of Justices, ed. and trans. William Joseph Whittaker
(Selden Society, v. 7, 1895), 140.
44 chapter one

be held liable [for her husband’s theft] because it is not she who
has it within her potestas but her husband.” The term potestas, or
power, in this context is ambiguous at best: it neither contradicts
nor reaffirms that a wife is “under her husband’s rod.” Yet, it estab-
lishes distinctly a hierarchy within the conjugal union in which the
husband occupies the privileged position. The treatise continues: “[a]
wife ought not to accuse her husband nor disclose his theft or felony,
but neither ought she to assent to it or act as his confederate; she
ought to keep him as best she can from felony and wickedness.”40
How is this different from Chobham’s ideal of the pious wife who
distributes her husband’s wealth behind his back and uses ‘pillow
talk’ to improve his moral character? The distinctively clerical per-
spective of Bracton reminds us of the ecclesiastical credentials of its
probable authors. Given that the authors were near contemporaries
of Chobham and shared similar ecclesiastical training, it is not sur-
prising that the two works should have shared the same expectations
of gender roles within marriage. Yet, neither perspective accords with
the more standard Christian theology on the inferiority of feminine
moral integrity, and the outlook of both works on this issue was
formed uniquely by their interactions with the laity through the royal
and ecclesiastical courts and the parish church. It seems clear that
in the thirteenth century, Christian writing in both law and morals
reflects a desire to offer realistic solutions to ordinary laymen and
women. This approach probably reflects the increasing influence of
friars in the thirteenth century. Friars deliberately altered their ser-
mons in order to make them less offensive to women, because as
Jacqueline Murray has argued, the demands of weekly preaching did
not mean “the laity will listen to advice that is irrelevant, insulting,
or at odds with their own experience and values.”41 The result is a
law and a moral theology that seems much more realistic than what
had come before.
Not surprisingly, then, Bracton offers some indications that although
men occupied the position of superiority in marriage, their rights

40
Henri de Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. G.E. Woodbine, trans.
Samuel E. Thorne (Cambridge: Belknap Press at Harvard University Press, 1968),
2: 428.
41
Jacqueline Murray, “Thinking about Gender: The Diversity of Medieval
Perspectives,” in Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. Jennifer Carpenter
and Sally-Beth MacLean (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 9.
 setting the scene 45

were limited. This vision is far different from that of the Mirror of
Justices. In the latter, a married woman’s primary allegiance is to her
husband. This approach fits in well with medieval theology. A morally
superior husband would not lead his wife into sin intentionally, but
away from it. Bracton espoused a more practical perspective. It under-
mined the husband’s ultimate power by arguing, “though she ought
to obey her husband she need not be obedient to him in heinous
deeds.”42 Bracton’s willingness to advocate compliance only when eth-
ically and logically sound smacks of realism. While the Mirror of
Justices presents the ideal of the good wife who accedes to her hus-
band’s commands without question, most women probably would
have had some difficulty with such unwavering loyalty. Bracton’s per-
spective, then, provides a foil for that found in the Mirror of Justices.
More important, it points to the probability that legal constructions
of gender roles within marriage were equally as ambiguous as eccle-
siastical perceptions, and at best contradictory.
The records of the law courts of medieval England document a
similar preoccupation with wife chastisement; juries also dealt with
castigation with a degree of uncertainty. For example, a Lincolnshire
coroners’ roll for the year 1374–5 held over the body of Alice, wife
of Alexander Dey of Potter Hanworth, confirms that the limits of cas-
tigation might well be unclear. The record states that on the Sunday
closest to the feast of St James Apostle, in his chamber at Potter
Hanworth, Alexander whipped his wife on the back to the extent that
she feared for her life. Escaping the hand and ‘power’ ( potestam) of
her husband, Alice fled the chamber, only to slip on some grease
and break her neck. The coroners’ roll is very careful to remark,
however, that her death occurred not because of the flagellation, but
by accident.43 The coroner’s inquest jury was at pains to note that,
although Alexander’s wife may have interpreted his actions as exces-
sive, they did not endanger her life. Yet, the marginalia of this case
illustrates the trial jury thought otherwise. Rather than a marking
of ‘infort ’ to indicate that this was an accident, the margin reports
simply Alexander’s name, as if he were any other felon.
A Yorkshire inquest from the year 1348 offers another case to
support the thesis that coroners’ juries were unsure about whether

42
Bracton, 2.428.
43
TNA JUST 2/72, m. 3.
46 chapter one

or not to hold men responsible for the results of their chastisement.

The roll states:
an argument arose between Richard Sutor of Ormesby and Cecilia
his wife, so that the said Richard struck the said Cecilia with his hand.
And then the said Cecilia fled, and in fleeing, she fell into the fire over
which a brass pot full of water stood (and) which overflowed on her
stomach and around the said Cecilia and scalded her, so that she died
confessed the Sunday next closest after the Ascension of the Lord then
next following. And immediately after the fact, Richard fled.44
It is possible to see this death as a misadventure, rather than culpable
homicide. In fact, in a society in which physical abuse of a wife was
acceptable and even encouraged, an accident is probably exactly how
a jury would have interpreted such a case. This perspective is rein-
forced by the omission of the standard phrase which would indicate
that Richard “feloniously slew” ( felonice interfecit) his wife. Yet, Richard
Sutor was not so convinced that a jury of his peers would believe
his innocence. After the death of his wife, he immediately fled. The
chief reason why he would have done so was in fear of execution,
the prescribed penalty if a jury found him guilty of a felony. Hence,
Richard perceived his own situation to be a case of homicide, and
not an accident.
In her study of the king’s pardon, Naomi Hurnard has demonstrated
that culpability for homicide sometimes was misunderstood during
the Middle Ages, and that even bystanders now and then fled out
of fear of judicial penalty.45 If this were the only record of Cecilia’s
death, we would have to question Richard’s flight on these grounds.
However, like many cases in the coroners’ rolls, Cecilia’s death
appears more than once. A second entry in a later roll, while much
less descriptive, is enlightening in its lack of detail. None of the events
leading up to Cecilia’s death is included in the record. Instead, it
states merely that “Richard Sutor of Ormesby feloniously slew his
wife Cecilia.”46 Richard was not the only one who interpreted Cecilia’s
death as a homicide; so, too, did his indicting jury.

44
TNA JUST 2/214, m. 11.
45
This is not entirely surprising considering the number of changes effected to
the law of homicide throughout the medieval period. For a fuller treatment of per-
sons who fled the scene of the crime see Naomi Hurnard, The King’s Pardon for
Homicide Before A.D. 1307 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), viii.
46
TNA JUST 2/213, m. 7
 setting the scene 47

Both of these cases of accidental death resulting from a husband’s

use of physical force would seem to suggest juries (and defendants)
were unclear about the extent to which they should hold husbands
legally accountable for their actions. Nevertheless, these are only two
cases among many; what is perhaps even more important is that the
coroners’ rolls for Yorkshire and Essex do not acknowledge any cases
of a wife’s death by castigation. In this respect, it is crucial to recog-
nise that the language of discipline was not foreign to royal records
of indictment. For example, the 1368 case of John Benet in the York-
shire coroners’ rolls describes how John castigated his brother William
with a rod until he died.47 An early sixteenth-century serjeant named
Keble who wrote a treatise on the law, actually addressed the issue
of death by chastisement and declared that it was, indeed, a felony.
He wrote, “if a master corrects his servant, a master his slave, a
schoolmaster his student, and from the force of the same correction
he dies, even if the master did not intend to kill him, still it is a
felony.”48 This statement does not refer specifically to wife chastise-
ment, but it seems reasonable to suppose that medieval society would
have placed it, too, in this category. If Keble’s knowledge reflects a
wider, and more long-standing, awareness of the problematic nature
of death by chastisement, abusive husbands in medieval England
may have realised the chances of justifying their actions in this way
were slim. Nevertheless, the total absence of cases of spousal homi-
cide by chastisement invites the unpleasant possibility that it may
have been so common as to be unworthy of note. In any case, the
discourse of marital relations blurred the line between castigation
and abuse in both theory and practice.
An unusual case from a Cambridgeshire coroner’s roll brings to
light the possibility that the legal representatives of communities
adopted a harsher position on castigation than the ecclesiastical or
legal treatises. In fact, inquest juries may have considered a wife’s
rebellious response to chastisement an ideal excuse for homicide. The
roll recounts the story of John French and his wife Maud. On a
Wednesday before the feast of Pope Gregory in the year 1362, the
record states that discord arose between John and his wife when he
attempted to castigate her for her “evil words.” Her husband’s actions

47
TNA JUST 2/222, m. 10d.
48
See J.M. Kaye, “The Early History of Murder and Manslaughter,” Law Quarterly
Review 82 (1967): 570.
48 chapter one

so enraged Maud that she took the staff from him and hit him with
it. In self-defence, John took up his knife. He fled their home, but
Maud followed him. Unable to escape her, he brandished his knife
so that, in descending the stairs, Maud ran into the knife, wound-
ing herself in the belly. She languished until the following Thursday,
when she died, confessed. Since John had not intended to kill his
wife, jurors did not consider her death a felony.49
Maud’s death is an almost classic example of self-defence from
this period, meeting the court’s stringent requirement that the per-
petrator do everything in his power to avoid killing his harasser.50
From John’s flight to Maud running into his knife, the jury’s account
embraces the tenor of the common law rules of homicide by self-
defence. The formulaic nature of the account makes it hard to imag-
ine that Maud’s death occurred precisely in this manner; the jury’s
declaration of John’s innocence, however, suggests that a wife’s refusal
to be governed might have justified homicide in some circumstances.
Both the legal treatises and law in practice shared many of the
same features of the discourse of castigation. Medieval laymen saw
that it was not only a husband’s right, but also his duty, to reform
his wife’s behaviour through force (sometimes) of a physical nature;
yet, neither the theory or practice of the law clarifies the acceptable
degree of force nor the husband’s accountability. A distinction may
have existed between the two: while Bracton expected some restraint
and that wives might sometimes disregard their husband’s dictates,
the law courts seem to have been less generous. Local representatives
of the moral community may have had much more strenuous expec-
tations of wives in terms of governance. Bearing in mind that men
expected to intervene in cases of marital violence in their neigh-
bourhoods, the general assumption may have been that it was not

49
TNA JUST 2/18, m. 57.
50
A Year Book from 1454 cites the rules for threatening to kill in self-defence,
noting: “. . . . if a man assaults you in order to beat you it is not lawful for you to
say you will kill him and to menace his life and limb: but if the case is such that
he has you at such advantage that it may be understood that he is going to kill
you as if you seek to flee and he is swifter than you and pursues you so that you
are unable to escape; or if you are on the ground under him; or if he chases you
to a wall or hedge or dike, so that you cannot escape, then it is lawful for you to
say that if he will not desist, you want to slay him to save your own life, and thus
you may menace him for such special cause.” Year Books, 1422–1461 (Henry VI)
(London, 1556–74), 33 Hen. 6, Easter, pl. 10.
 setting the scene 49

a wife’s right to determine when her husband’s actions exceeded

acceptable bounds; instead, this was a decision best left to the men
of the vill.

Discourses of Female Passivity

The expectation of female passivity when faced with marital violence

should not come as any surprise. The image of the passive wife was
far more common than Chobham’s interpretation of the good wife
who corrects her husband’s moral failings. In terms of spousal abuse,
some of the ecclesiastical literature from the period even spelled this
out. For example, the anonymous writer of a fourteenth-century
preacher’s manual51 entitled Fasciculus Morum, noted that although
wife-beating was scandalous, a wife should not only expect to be
beaten, but keep silent about it to protect her husband:
[h]umility as thus defined must be practiced, first because it patiently
endures its troubles; just as a wife who is mistreated by her husband
suffers it patiently so that she may not cause her husband to become
worthy of public shame, and if perhaps, to his shame, some external
lesion from his beating can be seen on her, she carefully dissimulates
saying she took such an injury elsewhere.52
St Augustine perpetuated probably the most common image of the
good wife who silently endured her husband’s abuse. In his biogra-
phy, he held up his own mother as an example to women. He wrote,
[f ]or she bore his acts of unfaithfulness quietly, and never had any jeal-
ous scene with her husband about them. . . . he had a very hot temper.
But she knew that a woman must not resist a husband in anger, by deed
or even by word. Only when she saw him calm again and quiet, she
would take the opportunity to give him an explanation of her actions,

51
An important distinction exists between preachers’ and confessors’ manuals.
The church intended confessors’ manuals to guide priests in their work in the con-
fessional. They suggested the kinds of questions a priest should ask in order to
uncover sins, as well as the advice a priest should dole out to his parishioners in
the confessional setting. A preacher’s manual, however, was quite different because
its focus was entirely on sermon material. The method of dissemination, then, trans-
formed the effect of the literature. Parishioners probably shared many of the ide-
ologies expressed in a confessors’ manual; on the other hand, a preacher’s spiritual
community most likely shared the perspectives found in a preacher’s manual.
52
Siegfried Wenzel, ed. and trans., Fasciculus Morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s
Manual (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 64–5.
50 chapter one

if it happened that he had been roused to anger unreasonably. The

result was that whereas many matrons with much milder husbands
carried the marks of blows to disfigure their faces, and would all get
together to complain of the way their husbands behaved, my mother
talking lightly but meaning it seriously, advised them against their
tongues: saying that from the day they heard the matrimonial con-
tract read to them they should regard it as an instrument by which
they became slaves . . .53
Because Augustine presents Monica as the ideal Christian wife, his
portrayal of her as the submissive wife who avoided strife is significant.
Augustine “makes his mother a spokesperson for the subservient obe-
dience necessary from chaste Christian women.”54 Monica is an ideal
wife and woman because she stands out from the rest: “If she had
acted in ways that provoked beatings, as Augustine believed her peers
did, she would have been no better than them.”55
Even the more popular prescriptive literature of the period had
much to say about a woman’s need to keep silent. In “What the
Goodwife Taught Her Daughter”56 mothers ostensibly instructed their
daughters on appropriate feminine behaviour, noting: “Make thou
no jangling” (14); “sweet of speech shall thou be” (28) and “be thou
no chider, nor of words bold” (83). Moreover, the poem contains a
description of the adult life to which an urban daughter should aspire:
a home that is also a business, in which one’s husband is also one’s
employer.57 The perceived need for this kind of prescriptive literature
ironically demonstrates that it might be ignored; but it also confirms
that the late medieval period in England was one in which images

53
Augustine, Confessionum S. Augustini, l. 9, c. 9, Patrologia Latina 32, cols. 772–773.
54
Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Nancy Nienhuis, “Battered Women and the
Construction of Sanctity,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 17 (2002): 42.
55
Kienzle and Nienhuis, 41.
56
London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 853. The poem is available in a printed
edition in Edith Rickert, ed. and trans., The Babees’ Book: Medieval Manners for the
Young Done into English from Dr. Furnivall’s Texts (Early English Text Society, o.s. v. 2,
2006). “What the Goodwife Taught Her Daughter” was a very popular poem that
circulated from the mid-fourteenth century to the late fifteenth in England in Latin,
French and English. A very useful survey of the circulation of this literature is pro-
vided by Felicity Riddy, “Mother Knows Best: Reading Social Change in a Courtesy
Text,” Speculum 71 (1996): 66–86.
57
Felicity Riddy has argued persuasively that this literature, written by clerics
(not wives), very much reflects a crisis in late medieval urban femininity: young
singlewomen were moving to urban environments for work, and were leading inde-
pendent lives that did not conform to contemporary social expectations of femi-
ninity. The author(s) of this poem, then, wished to remind women of their place.
 setting the scene 51

of passive femininity were proffered with the hope of teaching women

appropriate behaviour.
The exempla of the period also include morality tales intended to
teach wives the importance of being silent. An exemplum from The
Book of the Knight of Tour Landry recounts that
a woman ought not to strive with her husband, nor give no displeasance
nor answer her husband before strangers like a rampe (virago), and with
great villainous words, disraising him and setting him at nought; of the
which he was often ashamed, and bade her hold her peace for shame,
but the more fair he spake, the worse she did. And he that was angry
of her governance, smote her with his fist down to the earth; and then
with his foot he struck her in the visage and brake her nose, and all
her life after she had her nose crooked, the which shent and disfigured
her visage after, that she might not for shame show her visage, it was
so foul blemished. And this she had for her evil and great language,
that she was wont to say to her husband. And therefore the wife ought
to suffer and let the husband have the words, and to be master, for
that is her worship; for it is shame to hear strife between them, and in
especial before folk. But I say not but when they be alone, but she may
tell him with goodly words, and counsel him to amend if he do amiss.58
Exempla, or sermon stories, were a powerful means of instruction. As
Ruth Mazo Karras has argued, “[i]f anything reveals how common
men and women received the church’s teaching, it is the exemplum,
the form in which that teaching was expressed most vividly to the
laity.”59 While we cannot assume that women embraced whole-heart-
edly the church’s teachings, the ubiquity of this kind of literature is
significant. D.L. D’Avray describes the exempla as the first system of
mass communication. He writes, “[t]he question ‘Who was influenced
by sermons?’ is like the question ‘Who is influenced by the news-
papers?’ ”60 We do not know whether newspapers influence people’s
opinions, but we do know that people read them. Similarly, medieval
wives knew they were supposed to be silent, and that a failure to
do so might earn a beating from their husbands; whether they chose
to observe these teachings is another story entirely. The Knight of
La Tour Landry’s story of the scolding wife was not the only exemplum
to argue that women should be passive. In his discussion of the ideal
bride, Guibert de Tournai wrote, “she should not go out to shows,

58
Cited and translated in Coulton, 3.114–5.
59
Karras, “Gendered Sin and Misogyny,” 233.
60
D’Avray, 14.
52 chapter one

she should bow her neck, lower her eyebrows, close her eyes, abstain
from laughing, restrain her tongue, hold her anger in check, walk
in a seemly manner, and keep her good name secure—let there be
nothing in her to offend others, so that a good house may be known
from its lintel.”61 Being constantly confronted with such a narrow
stereotype of ideal femininity, women had a difficult path to negotiate.
Certainly, Chaucer’s Patient Griselda exemplifies the most taxing
stereotype for medieval wives. As Margaret Hallissy notes, “[e]very
wife must emulate the patience of Grisilde, whose story makes its
appearance whenever wifely obedience is discussed.”62 Chaucer’s tale
gives an account of the marriage of Walter and Griselda. After many
years of refusing to marry, Walter, king of Saluzzo, was pressured
into marrying by his people, eager for a successor to the throne. His
only condition was that he would not marry unless his wife was wholly
obedient. Thus, when he married Griselda, he made her promise that
she would always obey his will, even if it caused her pain. Throughout
their marriage, Walter put his wife’s obedience to the test. Immediately
after the birth of both their daughter and son, he had the children
removed to be raised elsewhere. Griselda suffered this enormity with-
out complaint. When the daughter had reached the age of twelve,
Walter informed Griselda that the pope had given him permission
to marry a woman of higher rank. Griselda agreed to return to her
father’s home, but only after she had helped him with his wedding.
His new bride (actually his daughter) was brought to Saluzzo and
Griselda unwearyingly aided in the preparations for their wedding
day. Finally appreciating fully the submissiveness of his wife, Walter
confessed to Griselda that the beautiful young woman was, in fact,
her daughter. He stopped testing his wife’s tolerance and the two
lived happily ever after.
Clearly, Walter and Griselda’s marriage was not the ideal. As
Margaret Hallissy has noted, the irony is “that having a perfect wife
makes Walter a worse man, not a better.”63 The clerk justifies the
tale as an allegory for the soul’s triumph over adversity and the need
for utter submission to God’s will. None the less, the tale leaves its
readers with a disturbing message. “The happy ending to their

61
D’Avray, 308–9.
62
Margaret Hallissy, Clean Maids, True Wives, Steadfast Widows: Chaucer’s Women and
Medieval Codes of Conduct (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993), 64.
63
Hallissy, 70.
 setting the scene 53

marriage, and their final years lived in harmony have the effect of
legitimizing Walter’s testing, confirming the medieval misogynist tradi-
tion that a wife was weak, willful, and in need of her husband’s
superior male judgment. The ample good humor displayed between
the two, soon after Griselda has recovered from her last swoon, and
Griselda’s obedient and obliging responses from this point onward,
also confirm the authority of Walter, not only as husband, but as
her teacher and guide, despite the difficulty of the ‘lesson’ he attempts
to teach her.”64 Even if Chaucer intended this to be a “tale of faith”
in God, the image he casts of the good wife is an ideal few women
could hope (or would wish) to emulate.65
The rhetoric of female passivity was not restricted to the litera-
ture of the period; it also permeated the records of the courts. The
language of female passivity is evident in disciplinary cases of domes-
tic violence presented before officials of the court. A 1371 notation
from the court book of the Dean and Chapter of York records that
Christian, wife of Robert of Moorby, feared living with her husband
because she believed that his abuse might lead to her death.66 Joan,
daughter of William Matheuson, around the same time, also preferred
not to live with her husband Robert of Pontefract, even though they
had been married for a long enough time to produce five children.
She argued that she was in such fear for her life that “she did not
dare live with him.”67 Formulaic language of this nature was very
careful to meet the court’s requirements of abuse that was near fatal.
At the same time, however, by asserting that the wife does not ‘dare’
live with her husband, or that she ‘fears’ him, the plaintiff was very
careful to remain within the acceptable gender boundaries of marriage:
she was the victim. Both ‘dare’ and ‘fear’ indicate her submission
and inferiority, and especially her passivity, reminding the court that
she had not violated social constructions of gender identity.

64
Kathryn L. McKinley, “The Clerk’s Tale: Hagiography and the Problems of Lay
Sanctity,” The Chaucer Review 33 (1998): 104.
65
Linda Georgianna, “The Clerk’s Tale and the Grammar of Assent,” Speculum
70 (1995): 793–821.
66
York M 2(1) b, fo. 2.
67
York M 2(1) c, fo. 15.
54 chapter one

Discourses of Female Aggression

The other day befell a strife

Between an old man and his wife;
She took him by the beard so hard
With hey, ho!
She took him by the beard so fast
Till both his eyes were bursting with water,
With hey, ho!68
While the ideal wife was obedient and silent, some of the lay liter-
ature and folklore of the period, as evidenced in the poem above,
suggests a more unpleasant reality in which most wives may have
fallen far short of these expectations. In fact, the prescriptive literature
of the period may only have been necessary because of the glaring
disparity that existed between the goodwife of poems, exempla and
sermons, and the goodwife next door. The vast repository of lay lit-
erature and English folklore indicates that some women found silent
acquiescence to their husbands’ governance an unrealisable goal. This
subconscious fear led men to expect the worst. The veneration of
the saints echoes the suspicion that everywhere English wives yearned
to do away with their husbands. According to legend, unhappy wives
prayed to Saint Wilgefort in the hopes that some terrible accident
conveniently might befall their husbands. Thomas More observed
that there were even rituals rumoured to guarantee just such an
“accident.” He maintained that English women celebrated Wilgefort
because of her remarkable capabilities, “she should provide a horse
for an evil husband to ride to the devil upon, for that is the thing
she is so sought for, as they say. Insomuch that women have there-
fore changed her name and instead of Saint Wilgeforte call her Saint
Uncumber, because they reckon that for a peck of oats she will not
fail to uncumber them of their husbands.”69 Wilgefort enjoyed a

68
“An Old Man and his Wife,” from Celia and Kenneth Sisam, eds., The Oxford
Book of Medieval English Verse (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 481–2.
69
As cited by Sara Maitland and Wendy Mulford, Virtuous Magic: Women Saints
and their Meanings (London: Mowbray, 1998), 126. Keith Thomas also refers to this
practice. See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Belief
in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Scribner, 1971), 29. Finally, M.R.
James remarks upon a similar custom peculiar to the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk
and focused on a relic called the Good Sword of Winfarthing. According to local
folklore, “it helped to the shortening of a married man’s life, if that the wife who
was weary of her husband would set a candle before that sword every Sunday for
the space of a whole year, no Sunday excepted, for then all was vain whatsoever
 setting the scene 55

special prominence in England throughout the later medieval and

early modern periods, as evidenced by artwork dedicated to her cult.
A statue in her honour remains in Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster
Abbey, and images of the saint appear in Worstead, Norwich and
Boxford (all in the county of Norfolk) until the time of Edward VI.70
Even if popular worship of St Wilgefort was only legendary, the
existence of her cult must have perpetuated fears by husbands of
the repercussions of poor governance and reminded them of the bur-
dens of patriarchs. While overly lax husbands were subject to pub-
lic ridicule of their manhood, autocratic husbands might well have
expected to see their wives leaving the doors of Westminster Abbey,
the remnants of a peck of oats clinging to their hands. The cult of
St Wilgefort represents medieval society’s worst fears of failed gov-
ernance. Because it was an extreme example, most men were prob-
ably incapable of experiencing a strong sense of empathy with these
concerns. The more common representation of the ungovernable
wife was characterised by a more subtle rebellion against social expec-
tations; at the same time, this image likely echoes realistic concerns
about feminine conduct.
Bawdy song and verse often depicted wives in a position of con-
trol. Husbands forced to deal with the abuse of domineering wives
were the unenviable subjects of many laments. This distorted view
of marriage is a representation of the mundus inversus, a world turned
upside-down in which the wife runs the household with a firm, tyran-
nical grip while the husband caters to his wife’s every need. Writers
and balladeers intended this antithetical view of the world, common
to both medieval and Renaissance literature, art and popular festivals,71

was done before.” Its popularity in Norfolk would seem to argue that this county
may have experienced some particular anxiety about petty traitors. See M.R. James,
Suffolk and Norfolk: a perambulation of the two counties with notices of their history and their
ancient buildings (Bury St. Edmunds: Alastair Press, 1987), 132.
70
Maitland and Mulford, 129. S. Baring-Gould also notes that the worship of
Wilgefort appears briefly in the Salisbury Enchiridion, published in 1533, in which
she is provided with hymn and collect. See S. Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints
(London: Benziger Brothers, 1874), July. 488.
71
See Natalie Z. Davis, “Women on Top: Symbolic Sexual Inversion and Political
Disorder in Early Modern France,” in The Reversible World, ed. B. Babcock (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1978); Martin Ingram, “Ridings, Rough Music and the
‘Reform of Popular Culture’: Early Modern England,” Past and Present 105 (1984):
79–113; E.P. Thompson, “ ‘Rough Music’: Le Charivari anglais,” Annales: Economies-
Société-Civilisations 27 (1972): 285–312; and Kusue Kurokawa, “Noah’s Wife as a
Virago: A Folkloric Figure in English Mystery Plays,” The Profane Arts of the Middle
Ages 5 (1996): 218–25.
56 chapter one

to be comical in its absurd representation of the marital relationship;

however, the inversion of gender roles was a literary tool with a view
of both entertaining and instructing. While the mundus inversus may
have been a farcical image of marriage, contemporary expectations
defined appropriate gender roles in a very public setting in a way
that was meaningful to the audience. The inversion of roles provoked
laughter because of the unnaturalness of an aggressive woman or a
submissive man, while at the same time it supported contemporary
notions that the reverse is natural: women are inherently passive, men
inherently active. The message was very clear. Literary representations
of domineering wives served a dual purpose: not only did they pro-
duce laughter with the inanity of the depiction, they also mocked
women who ventured to adopt such roles.72 Yet, the subject would
not have been at all amusing unless the representation was in some
way familiar to the audience. Literature did not create the norm, it
merely confirmed to people what should be the norm. Popular lit-
erature functioned as a form of gender control within society, ensuring
that audiences would greet any deviance from the norm with laugh-
ter. “Humorous ballads taught men and women to take their gender
roles within marriage seriously.”73
In the mundus inversus, violence was often a tool by which the wife
maintains control. The mundus inversus is a world where the natural
order has been upended, transforming the husband into a woman.
With years of marital experience behind her, an old wife learns to
bend her husband to her will. “A Henpecked Husband’s Complaint,
I” typifies this genre of humour. The song begins with the husband
cautioning other men not to marry an elderly woman precisely for
this reason.
Young men, I warn you everyone:
Old wives take you none;
for I myself have one at home—
I dare not speak when she says “peace!”

72
Elizabeth Foyster, “A Laughing Matter? Marital Discord and Gender Control
in Seventeenth-Century England,” Rural History 4 (1993): 6–7.
73
Foyster, 18. Of course, this phenomenon was in no way confined to theatrical
representations of gender relations. The enforcement of social morality through mock-
ery reached its height in the later comedies of Ben Johnson and Molière, where
the miser, the cheat and the sycophant, rather than the hen-pecked husband and
his garrulous wife, received the most scathing treatments.
 setting the scene 57

When I come from the plough at noon,

In a broken dish my meat is done;
I dare not ask our dame [for] a spoon—
I dare not speak when she says “peace!”
If I ask our dame bread,
she takes a staff and breaks my head,
and does me run under the bed—
I dare not speak when she says “peace!”
If ask our dame flesh,
she breaks my head with a dish:
“boy, thou art not worth half a pea.”
I dare not speak when she says “peace!”74
Although the song retains the gendered nature of the couple’s labour,
the inversion of the power relationship within the marriage makes
its message even more pointed. Men who recognised elements of
themselves in this depiction had reason for concern. The justification
for the use of force in this poem is simple: the husband cannot seem
to keep quiet. Perhaps he would have done well to learn from the
Goodwife’s words to her daughter: “Make thou no jangling.”
This popular song presents a sensationalised view of marriage
intended to portray abuse comically in order to reach a wider audi-
ence. None the less, the exaggerated perspective does not detract
from the moral of the story; in fact, it may have served an addi-
tional function. If the wife who beats her husband every time he
opens his mouth is a comic figure, is this merely because she is a
woman, or does the degree of violence play a role in this joke? The
irrational and excessive nature of the violence in this depiction may
have been a tool calculated to berate husbands who resort too fre-
quently to physical force in marriage. Might a man who participated
in this discourse on marriage in good conscience beat his wife for
no apparent reason? Songs of this genre may have caused him to
rethink his actions.
The mundus inversus was not a theme restricted to literature; it was
also a frequent subject of medieval English art. Ayers Bagley has
described it as the “mainstay of the human comedy played out among
the [church] stalls” in misericords.75 Misericords are carvings found

74
Rossell Hope Robbins, ed., Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1952), 39.
75
Ayers Bagley, “Misericords & Choir Stall Carvings: Education, Imagery and
58 chapter one

on wooden ledges that jut out from the bottom of the hinged seat
of a choir stall in collegiate churches. Their purpose was to act as
a support for canons and monks, especially elderly or infirm ones,
by giving them the appearance of standing. However, the carvings
were not merely decorative. Rather, they were “a successful and
meaningful part of church architecture, inspired artistically by the
desires of the clergy to see reflected therein comment on their own
social interests and religious status.”76 Some even had a didactic func-
tion as miniature morality tales: the patrons intended a solitary image
to bring to mind a specific Christian teaching. Accordingly, the pro-
liferation of images of the mundus inversus in this particular art form
is very instructive. These carvings were constant visual reminders of
the absurdity of female dominance and aggression. With celibate
male canons as their intended audience, these images probably dis-
couraged them from marriage by highlighting it at its worst: mar-
riage to a shrew.77
At least twenty-three English misericords depicting domestic brawls
have survived from the period between the late fourteenth to the
early sixteenth century.78 These carvings show women beating their
husbands with all the tools of their trade: men are struck with ladles,
pots, brooms and distaff; wives pull beards and birch men’s bottoms.
The latter is a particularly curious inclusion because of its hierarchical
implications: medieval art regularly depicted disobedient children hav-
ing their bottoms birched by schoolmasters or parents. The drawing
of an analogy between husbands and children must have made the

Satire in Medieval Choirs,” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2000), http://edu-

cation.umn.edu/EdPA/iconics/misericord/misericords_text.htm. Many examples of
misericords are listed in G.L. Remnant, A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), passim. The most prominent examples in
Remnant’s catalogue having to do with domestic violence, however, are those of
Stratford-upon-Avon and Westminster Abbey (see figures 1–4 at the end of this
chapter), and also Ely Cathedral.
76
Wendy Armstead, “Interpreting Images of Women with Books in Misericords,”
in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H.M.
Taylor (London and Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 70.
77
At least two works discuss the possibility that these misericords are a visual
representation of the threat of women to preachers. See Wendy Armstead, “A
Catalogue of the Misericords of St David’s Cathedral,” (MA diss., University of
Wales, 1986), 21–35. See also E.C. Block, “Half-Angel Half-Beast: Images of Women
on Misericords,” Reinardus 5 (1992): 17–34.
78
Kusue Kurokawa offers a list as well as plentiful illustrations of these miseri-
cords. See Kurokawa, 222–27.
 setting the scene 59

lesson much clearer: in the world turned upside-down, wives assumed

the role of patriarch. Moreover, there is a particular significance to
the baring a man’s bottom in these misericords: “breeches used to
be a traditional costume, symbol of man’s bodily sway over women,
so that a woman beating a naked man without breeches, as at
Westminster, shows that she is now physically ruling him.”79
Undoubtedly, these images of husband-beatings must have had an
effect on social perceptions of the acceptability of domestic violence.
The role reversal inevitably lends a comedic quality to the art. Yet,
if marital strife is not upsetting, but amusing, how does this change
our perspective of actual instances of marital violence? This is a
difficult question to answer. At the very least, this barrage of images
likely entertained audiences while simultaneously making medieval
spouses highly aware of social constructions of gender roles.80 Once
again, for men these images had a special meaning: a wife’s unruly
behaviour put him in an uncomfortably feminine position.

Discourse of Marital Violence: Abuse as a Remedy for Disobedience

The literary representations of marital violence dwell on the burdens

of masculinity. They are patently clear: violence in marriage is usually
provoked by the actions of a scolding, rebellious wife—a woman who

79
Kurokawa, 229–30.
80
Barbara Hanawalt, arguing from an English perspective, has asserted that this
inverted vision of spousal abuse was “the usual illustration” in medieval artwork.
Danièle Alexandre Bidon and Monique Closson, in their examination of the con-
tinental evidence, have claimed the opposite. In their examination of manuscript
illustrations from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, Alexandre Bidon and
Closson concluded that conjugal violence much more frequently was directed against
women, in particular adulterous wives. This disparity in representations of marital
violence reveals a distinction in continental and English treatments of the pheno-
menon, despite the similarity of counsel in pastoral care. The continental images eschew
the comedic façade entirely; consequently, the message implied in the image is much
more direct. Within the parameters of the present study, it is not feasible to attempt
to understand why there was a perceived need for direct instruction about gender
roles on the continent while this was apparently not the case in England; never-
theless, this finding insinuates that England dealt with marital abuse in a unique
way. See Barbara A. Hanawalt, The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 207, and Danièle Alexandre Bidon and
Monique Closson, “L’amour à l’épreuve du temps: femme battues, maris battus,
amants battus à travers les manuscrits enluminés (XIIIè–XVè s.),” in Amour, mariage
et transgressions au Moyen Age. Actes du colloque des 24 –27 mars 1983, ed. Danielle
Buschinger and André Crépin (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1984), 493–514.
60 chapter one

refuses to heed her husband’s commands, and speaks to him without

reverence or respect. Yet, even literature places the blame for a wife’s
behaviour very much on the husband’s shoulders. Because it is his
responsibility to instruct his wife on acceptable and moral conduct,
her inability to act accordingly marks his failure. The literature also
addresses the issue of just how firm a firm hand should be. Intemperate
violence from a husband leads to irrational rebellion; but a man who
uses force wisely is much happier in his marriage.
Probably the best-known medieval example of the shrewish wife
was the character of Uxor Noe, the wife of Noah in the Flood plays
of the English mystery cycles. These collections of biblical plays,
ranging from Genesis to the life of Christ and the Last Judgement,
offer a glimpse into the minds of the medieval laity. Despite their
religious content and unmistakable educational thrust, lay guilds both
created and performed the mystery plays. Because these men occu-
pied a significant position in the courts as jurors, the plays are instruc-
tive about their perceptions of conduct appropriate to gender and
rank. Moreover, these cycles had a very conscious objective. They
intended “to make sacred events real to lay congregations.”81 As a
result, guilds adopted contemporary dress and sets, and even addressed
contemporary social or political concerns in an effort to facilitate
audience identification with the characters and situations presented
in them. Thus, the plays represent a wide range of social percep-
tions: not only those of the elite urbanites who were instrumental in
the writing and performance of these plays, but also of the mem-
bers of the lower ranks who participated actively as performers in
the crowd scenes and passively as audience members. The mystery
cycles, then, are one of the best means of unravelling shared per-
ceptions of key social issues.
The depiction of Noah and his wife in these cycles is critical to this
investigation, in part because it is the most extensive depiction of
domestic strife in English medieval literature. It is also one of the
most fictionalised scenes appearing in the cycle plays and thus may
represent an attempt to make a mythical story memorable to medieval
audiences. While the Bible mentions Noah’s wife only in passing, the
Uxor Noe of the English mystery cycles was usually a lively and comic

81
A.C. Spearing, “Mediaeval Religious Drama,” in The Medieval World, ed. D. Darches
and A. Thorelley (London, 1973), 526.
 setting the scene 61

shrew who baits her husband and constantly disobeys his orders.82
The Wakefield play presents the most creative and most violent vision
of the relationship between Noah and his wife, and thus our discussion
will focus on this version of the play. In many ways, the Wakefield
couple represents the medieval antecedent of the Punch and Judy
plays. From the instant the two appear on stage together there is
never a dull moment. The exchange of blows and incessant squabbling
between the two reduces the pageant into a travesty of a failing mar-
riage. The depiction of the couple is so absurd that one begins to
wonder why God did not decide simply to start from scratch. From
the beginning, the audience is aware of Noah’s inability to govern
his wife properly. Hearing God’s plan to flood the earth, Noah
expresses his fears at his wife’s reaction, guaranteeing that even before
Uxor appears on the stage the audience knows exactly what to expect.
My wife well I fear what she will say,
And I am terrified that we get some affray
Between us both,
For she is easily irritated,
For little often angry;
If any thing wrong be,
Soon is she angered. (183–89)
Noah’s fears set the scene, and the audience is not disappointed by
what transpires. A friendly greeting to his wife meets with immediate
disapproval. While Noah has been off conversing with the divine he
has been neglecting his duties, and Uxor is not hesitant to remind him
of this. Before Noah has a chance to tell his wife about the flood
and his building project, she immediately launches into a tirade
directed first at Noah, then at the audience. She harangues Noah for
his melodrama and constant over-reaction, and warns him that his
depression “be it false or true” (201) is beginning to bore her. Having
made her point and sufficiently distracted Noah from his original
purpose, she turns away from her husband and wishes heartily to
be “loosed” from the bonds of marriage. (209) With an air of wisdom
and experience, she invites the women in the audience to learn from

82
The only English mystery cycle in which Uxor is not depicted as such is the
N-Town cycle, often referred to as Ludus Coventriae, believed to have been associ-
ated with the town of Coventry in Warwickshire. This particular cycle adopts a
much more continental typology by portraying Uxor as a type of Mary. See Richard
J. Daniels, “Uxor Noah: A Raven or a Dove?” The Chaucer Review 14 (1979): 23–32.
62 chapter one

her mistakes. Taking them into her confidence, she tells them what
marriage is really all about: deception and revenge.
If he is detained, I must tarry, howsoever it stands,
Seeming full sorry, wringing both my hands
For dread;
But that otherwhile,
What with game and with guile,
I shall smite and smile,
And pay him back instead. (210–16)
Her aside is the beginning of the end. Frustrated and incensed, Noah
casts the first blow: “Upon the bone shall it byte!” (220), and there
follows a rapid exchange of blows and caustic remarks.
The battle resumes when Uxor first lays eyes on the ark. The ship
is so misshapen that she cannot discern the bow from the stern. She
is so bewildered by the ship, that she cannot suffer the thought of
boarding it. Deeply unsettled, she refuses to come aboard and pro-
nounces her intention to spin. In utter amazement, Noah and his sons
watch as she sets herself upon a hill and pulls out her distaff and
wool. It is only once the water has reached the top of the hill and
she is no longer able to spin on dry land that she considers board-
ing the ship. In a conspiratorial tone, Noah turns to the men in the
audience and warns what will happen if they do not beat their wives
while they are young enough to be taught:
You men that have wives, while they are young,
If you love your lives, chastise their tongue.
Me thinks my heart is torn apart, both liver and lung,
To see such strife, wedded men among.
But I,
As have I bliss,
Shall chastise this. (400–06)
He then turns back to his wife and resumes battle without the slightest
consideration for the encroaching water. In the end, utter exhaustion,
not the flood, drives them aboard the ship. “[B]eat so blue” (413)
they agree to a truce and both enter the ark. From this point onward,
the Flood play is much like any other. Noah and his wife cooperate
in guiding the ship to land and they begin their new lives much
more peaceably.
This depiction of Noah and his relationship with his wife in the
Wakefield plays holds a powerful message. The level of violence in
this play is both offensive and repellent while at the same time very
 setting the scene 63

entertaining. The play at once amuses and disturbs the audience

with the excessive nature of the violence. Noah’s wife is very much
a type of Eve, the first disobedient wife, a fitting part since she
assumes the role of the new “Eve” in the world after the Flood. The
links between Uxor and Eve were sometimes explicit. Representations
of Eve in art and literature throughout the medieval period regularly
associated her with the act of spinning, a feminine task symbolic of
Eve’s punishment after the Fall; thus, the distaff was a constant phys-
ical reminder of women’s role in Original Sin.83 Like Eve, Wakefield’s
Uxor is represented as a spinner, and it was in this role that she
best exhibited her disobedience. Her absolute refusal to board the
ark because of her preoccupation with spinning is the ultimate defiance
of Noah’s authority. The allusions to Eve are at times even more
clear-cut. Before the first exchange of blows between the two, Noah
shouts to his wife, “I shall make thee still as a stone, beginner of
blunder!” (406), drawing here the connection between Uxor and Eve
for those in the audience who might otherwise have missed the more
subtle references. Moreover, Noah’s wife is the quintessential scold.
Uxor’s fears of being “pent up” (band, 328; pynd, 332) on the ship
stem from its similarity to contemporary punishments for scolding.
A misericord from medieval Beverley reveals that husbands drove
scolds through the streets in a ship-shaped wheelbarrow to the local
pond or river for ducking.84 Surely, this imagery was not lost on
medieval audiences. The Wakefield play was a powerful introduction
to the notion that violence in marriage is an exercise in futility. It
is not until they learn to move past their chastisement and rebellion
that the couple is capable of working together. In the unfolding of
this plot “[b]oth husband and wife are chastised, and order is restored
through a physical experience that makes them consider looking at
their relationship in a different light.”85 Audiences participating in
this battle for power cannot help but be aware that there is no deci-
sive victory. After they establish peace and board the ark, neither is

83
Laura F. Hodges, “Noe’s Wife: Type of Eve and Wakefield Spinner,” in Equally
in God’s Image: Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Julia Bolton Holloway, Constance S.
Wright, and Joan Bechtold (New York: P. Lang, 1990), 31. See also, Jeffrey Alan
Hirshberg, “Noah’s Wife on the Medieval English Stage: Iconographic and Dramatic
Values of Her Distaff and Choice of Raven,” Studies in Iconography 2 (1976): 25–40.
84
Kurokawa, 232.
85
Josie P. Campbell, “The Idea of Order in the Wakefield Noah,” The Chaucer
Review 10 (1985): 83.
64 chapter one

master in the relationship: man and woman are forced to work

together. This progression represents a clear break between the old
and new worlds. By entering the ark, the couple shed their past
antagonism and become equal partners in marriage.
While the Flood Play was most likely intended as a lesson in faith,
accentuating Noah’s godliness in contrast with Uxor’s frivolity, the
play’s function as religious instruction easily may have fallen by the
wayside, adopting the tone of a slapstick comedy not unlike its more
modern equivalent, Punch and Judy. Because Punch and Judy are
puppets, the abuse they inflict on each other is funny. No one is at
a disadvantage. They are equally matched. The Wakefield audience
may have perceived Uxor and Noah in a similar fashion. While it
is conceivable that a woman played the role of Uxor Noe, it is not
likely. There are few known cases of female actors in the Middle Ages.
Moreover, given that the shipwrights, mariners and fishmongers were
primarily responsible for this pageant in the cycle, it seems highly
unlikely that this would have been the case. This single yet crucial
detail might have had significant ramifications on the audience reac-
tion to the abuse in this play. A man and woman beating each other
is depressing because we already know the outcome; two men knock-
ing each other senseless, especially when one is in drag, is just funny.
This is not to suggest that as a burlesque the moral of the tale was
ineffectual. As the popular songs of the era bear witness, humour
was a useful tool in the expression of shared values. Yet, the visual
imagery of two men beating each other may have diminished slightly
the effectiveness of this motif for the reinforcement of gender roles
in marriage. In her analysis of fabliaux, Angela Weisl has argued the
dangers of slapstick depictions of this nature: “the humor takes place
before a backdrop of violence against women, which it normalizes
by turning it into the punch line of a joke.”86 In effect, rather than
teaching audiences about the dangers of poor governance, the Wakefield
Noah and his wife may merely have desensitised medieval audiences
to the horrors of domestic violence, and established the naturalness
of abuse as a feature of marriage.

86
Angela Jane Weisl, “ ‘Quitting’ Eve: Violence against Women in the Canterbury
Tales,” in Violence against Women in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts (Gainesville:
University Press of Florida, 1998), 120.
 setting the scene 65

Conclusion

While the Wakefield Noah represents one of the feeblest examples

of the able patriarch, he nevertheless offers medieval men some of the
best advice: “You men that have wives, while they are young,/If
you love your lives, chastise their tongue.”87 If a man failed to gov-
ern his wife appropriately from the very beginning of their marriage,
he was doomed to end up exchanging words (and blows) with a wife
as shrewish as Uxor Noe. If he was lucky, he would be the only
victim of her abuse; if her behaviour extended beyond the walls of
their home, he might also find himself on the wrong end of a suit
of trespass, or presented in the church courts. Even that was not
the full extent of the damage an independent and unruly wife might
incur. A man’s burden was two-fold. Not only was he responsible
legally for his wife’s immoral and illicit behaviour, but socially his
manhood depended on it. The paradigm was standard, and needed
little interpretation: a wife who behaved badly did so out of poor
governance; a husband who governed poorly was ill suited to be a
husband, and in fact, not only was he a poor husband, he was not
really a man at all. What constituted instances of ill rule seemed to
be identifiable. When it comes to notions of ‘good governance,’ how-
ever, the sources are much more ambiguous. The underlying theme
in these various and sometimes competing discourses is that a good
husband knows when to use violence and how much violence to use.
Medieval society left it to husbands to negotiate the limits of force.
At the very least, the sources explain why men beat their wives.
According to the ecclesiastical sources, wife beating resulted from a
failure to internalise appropriately the public and private faces of mas-
culinity. The legal sources, on the other hand, make it evident that
wife beating is the consequence of unclear limits: while the theory
of castigation encouraged some degree of force only when necessary,
in practice medieval England tolerated a much higher level of force.
Forced to negotiate these various discourses of violence and passiv-
ity, it is no wonder that some men were capable of describing their
actions as discipline. The blurred boundary between castigation and
abuse provided fertile ground to sow the seeds of marital discord.

87
See p. 62 of this chapter.
66 chapter one

Fig. 1: A misericord from Stratford-upon-Avon illustrating the mundus inversus.

A wife pulls her husband’s beard and prepares to hit him with a pot.

Fig. 2: A misericord from Stratford-upon-Avon depicting marital strife.

 setting the scene 67

Fig. 3: A misericord from Westminster Abbey’s Henry VII Chapel.

A wife beats her cowering husband with a distaff.

Fig. 4: A misericord from Westminster Abbey’s Henry VII Chapel. A woman

birches her husband’s bottom. This imagery is reminiscent of a schoolmaster’s
punishment of a disobedient boy.*

* These images are reproduced here with permission from Bagley’s “Misericords
& Choir Stall Carvings.”
 CHAPTER TWO

TYPES AND FREQUENCY OF ABUSE IN

THE MEDIEVAL LAW COURTS

One of the standard lessons of medieval history is that during the High
Middle Ages marriage was indissoluble. Once the vows had been
uttered, there was no turning back. For modern-day historians, this
kind of permanence of the conjugal union may seem almost grim
and forbidding, particularly given the involvement of parents and
other family members in spousal selection. Nevertheless, more recent
research has demonstrated that medieval marriages were not as endur-
ing as was once thought. The proliferation of canon laws regulating
impediments to marriage (such as consanguinity, affinity, and spon-
sorship) caused F.W. Maitland to declare, “spouses who had quar-
relled began to investigate their pedigrees and were unlucky if they
could discover no impedimentum dirimens.”1 Since Maitland’s time, egged
on by investigation into the practice rather than theory of canon
law, historians have rejected his cynical contention that distressed
spouses exploited the provisions for annulment by seeking out imped-
iments of relationship to escape the perpetuity of marriage. Instead,
they have put forward the hypothesis that unhappy couples turned
first to the laws of bigamy. During the Middle Ages, bigamy (or pre-
contract, as it was then described) occurred much more frequently
than today, owing to the fluctuating definition of medieval marriage.
Medieval marriages might be ambiguous—the only legal requirement
was an exchange of vows with no fixed vocabulary expressing mutual
consent in the present tense.2 While clergy at all levels regularly

1
As cited in R.H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1974), 75. Maitland is referring specifically to the laws
of incest. By the early thirteenth century incest was defined as entering into marriage
with a person related within four degrees (i.e. third cousin) by blood (consanguinity),
by marriage or by sexual union (affinity), or by sponsorship or spiritual relationship
(e.g. a godparent). These were not the only impediments to marriage. Impotence, force
and fear and minority were also thought to be reasonable grounds for an annulment.
2
Although there was no set vocabulary required by the church to create a valid
marriage, the vocabulary employed by Englishmen and women in marriage vows
was remarkably fixed.
 types and frequency of abuse 69

preached against clandestine unions and insisted on ecclesiastical

solemnisation of marriages at the church door, ironically, canonical
sanction of clandestine marriages thwarted their efforts. The unpre-
tentious nature of medieval marriages often led to uncertainty about
whether or not a couple had in fact contracted marriage. The sim-
plicity of the exchange created a situation ripe for manipulation, one
that has become the focus of much debate. James Brundage has
argued that the practice of “clandestine marriage made it possible
for people to contract and dissolve their own marriages. If a couple
made promises to each other privately in the future tense, and then
settled down together, there was no effective way to prevent them
from separating and marrying again should the experiment not work
out.”3 Richard Helmholz describes this process as ‘self-divorce.’
Unhappy couples bypassed the laws altogether, parting by mutual
consent to carry on their separate lives.4 An informal separation cou-
pled with relocation to a different village would have created an
opportunity to start a new life. Perhaps more cynically, some historians
have expressed that, “[m]edieval marriages were more dissoluble than
the rules would suggest . . . because everyone, or at least many people,
could come up with a precontract.”5
From this perspective, one would be inclined to think that all
medieval marriages should have been happy ones; and yet, records
from almost every kind of court in England from this period offer
evidence to reveal that many medieval marriages were far from it.
Despite the obvious loopholes, uncovered by studious historians and
exploited by some medieval men and women, many others truly
believed that a marriage lasts “till death us depart.” This viewpoint
entails a much different approach to marriage than the Western
world espouses today. Without an ecclesiastically sanctioned and pub-
licly approved form of divorce, medieval couples needed much more

3
James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 501.
4
Helmholz, 59. Helmholz does argue that self-divorce in the Middle Ages was
not merely a form of wife repudiation, as some historians have suggested. More
often than not, the separation of the couple was rationalised as being “vaguely
canonical,” meaning that the couple perceived their marriage to be invalid for one
reason or another. In this way, the laity was acting within the bounds of canonical
doctrine, but without ecclesiastical sanction.
5
Charles Donahue, Jr., “A Legal Historian Looks at the Case Method,” Northern
Kentucky Law Review 19 (1991): 27.
70 chapter two

rigorous supervision and assistance in dealing with marital disharmony.

For the most part, family, neighbours and friends addressed typical
instances of marital disharmony and domestic violence of a less
extreme form. Marriage in this era was not the private institution it
is today. Families and vills expected to play an important role, not
only in the creation of a marriage, but also in its regulation. Owing
to the informal nature of this kind of supervision, there are few doc-
uments to illustrate the role of the family in this capacity, but there
is ample evidence to argue that it played an essential role in cop-
ing with domestic violence. The role of the family and the larger
community as marital supervisors is explored in Chapter Five. The
goal of the current chapter is to look at the more easily documented
(and thus more quantifiable) kinds of abuse—cases of marital dishar-
mony in which the levels of violence exceeded the capacity of fam-
ily, friends and neighbours. Unable to cope with some situations of
abuse, family, friends and neighbours used their powers to present
violent couples before a court of law where they were required to
resolve their difficulties in a public and, somewhat, humiliating fashion.
Although only a modest number of documented cases of physical
abuse have survived from medieval York and Essex (and also parts
of Kent belonging to Canterbury diocese), these 309 cases identified
as instances of physical violence in marriage and found in all three
fora (ecclesiastical, manorial and royal courts) offer much insight into
the regular method of dealing with abuse. Given the spiritual dimen-
sions of such a predicament, the ecclesiastical courts were the obvi-
ous venue for cases of excessive force; however, the manorial courts
also played an important role in the regulation of marriage and may
have seemed the more appropriate forum for those cases where rec-
onciliation was not the concern. The royal courts claimed jurisdiction
in extreme cases of marital violence, those leading to the death of
a spouse. In examining how each of these courts dealt with marital
violence it becomes apparent that the decisions these courts had to
make were not always so clear-cut. Even in cases of spousal homicide,
the verdicts recorded simply by an ‘S’ (suspensus—‘hanged’) or ‘Q’
(quietus—‘acquitted’) in the margins mask complex ethical and gendered
battles fought daily among the various levels of the local community.
An analysis of all of these kinds of records, then, offers us much
insight into the regular process of dealing with spousal abuse in the
medieval context, but also opens a window into the minds of the
medieval peasantry to glimpse their perspective on marital disharmony.
 types and frequency of abuse 71

At the very least, these records permit a greater understanding of

what medieval families understood as unacceptable levels of violence
in marriage.

Regulating Spousal Abuse: the Church Courts

Since the early thirteenth century when the church first recognised
marriage as a sacrament, the ecclesiastical courts had come to assume
jurisdiction in cases of marital disharmony requiring curial inter-
vention. Abuse could make its way into the courts of the church by
two different means. First, an unhappy wife might plead a suit in
court for a judicial separation on the grounds of cruelty. Suits of
this nature were rare, however, and their plaintiffs were of an extra-
ordinary nature. A suit in an ecclesiastical court was a costly venture;
as a result, the kind of women who were capable of pleading a suit
in court had to have independent access to finances and most likely
believed they had a monetary stake in the dissolution of the mar-
riage.6 In the second and more routine scenario, bishops and deans
addressed disciplinary matters ex officio (by virtue of their office).7 The
official in his court summoned couples experiencing marital disharmony
(along with a multitude of other sinners) to respond to the allegations
and pay their penance. In some of these cases, the informant may
have been a spouse who was unable to afford the high costs of lit-
igation. Other possible complainants might be a family member con-
cerned for the well-being of the couple, or a neighbour weary of
continual disruption. The records intimate that court officials expected
families and friends to play a role in regulating marital violence, and
at times held them financially accountable for the actions of violent
men in their communities.
The ecclesiastical records are not awash with cases of spousal vio-
lence. While ex officio act books and court books for York and

6
Judicial separations are explored at length in Chapter Four.
7
For a discussion of ex officio procedure in general, see Norma Adams and Charles
Donahue, Jr., eds., Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Province of Canterbury
c. 1200–1301 (London: Selden Society, 1981), 57–59. A convenient guide to the
surviving act books of the ecclesiastical courts may be found in Charles Donahue,
Jr., ed., The Records of the Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts: Reports of the Working Group on
Church Court Records 2: England, Comparative Studies in Continental and Anglo-American Legal
History 7 (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1994).
72 chapter two

Canterbury for the period 1357 to 1508 offer insight into myriad
cases of marital disharmony, there are around thirty-five cases of
identifiable instances of physical violence in marriage, with the vast
majority issuing from the York evidence.8 When compared to adul-
tery, fornication and even prostitution, this is a very small number.
Most probably, this figure does not reflect the actual number of cases
of marital violence that came before the court in the medieval period.
More likely, it speaks to the poor survival of ecclesiastical court
records, particularly in Canterbury, the difficulty of deciphering those
records that have survived, as well as the reluctance of scribes to
detail the marital difficulties of the clients of the court. While many
court scribes were willing to point out that a couple was in court
to discuss the possibility of an annulment or a separation, they often
failed to provide any further insight into the events that had brought
the couple before the court.
Of those ex officio records that do offer evidence of physical violence
in marriage, the vast majority are exceedingly terse. The late four-
teenth-century case of John Knyght of Burnham (Yorks.), presented
before the court for spousal mistreatment, exemplifies this brevity.
The record reveals only that he “maltreats his wife greatly.”9 Although
his abuse is boldly stated, the record omits entirely the details of his
actions, preventing a fuller understanding of what ‘great’ spousal mis-
treatment might have entailed. Similarly, an ex officio act book of
1395–1410 mentions the case of William Chapman of Canterbury
diocese who appeared before the court because he beat his wife.10
The documentation reveals no other details. Some records offer a
somewhat fuller account: an ex officio act book of 1468 to 1474 from
Canterbury records a joint presentment of Thomas Preston and his
wife Denise for openly arguing in the fields close to their home.11 In
this instance, the notation at least makes it clear that the courts held
both husband and wife responsible for their disruptive behaviour; and

8
Of course, both ex officio and consistory court books in general are in poor
condition; they are torn, stained, and very poorly hand-written with much abbre-
viation. Given the general state of these books, statistical analysis is not advisable.
Accordingly, any figures presented in this book issuing from these records repre-
sent only cases that are clearly legible and thus unmistakable instances of abuse, or
cases that relate to the subject.
9
York D & C AB/1, fo. 9.
10
Canterbury X.8.1, fo. 31v.
11
Canterbury Y.1.11, fo. 188r.
 types and frequency of abuse 73

yet, records of this nature lack the kinds of detail necessary in order
to draw firm conclusions about attitudes towards domestic violence.
Nevertheless, those cases that have survived are instructive about
the nature of the court’s treatment of spousal violence cases. For
example, while records of marital disharmony appearing in the con-
sistory court do not regularly record the judge’s ruling in the matter,
extant sentences reveal consistory courts adopting a fairly consistent
strategy. Officials were determined to address the reasons for the abuse
(adultery, non-cohabitation, scolding, and so on) and penalise them
accordingly. Then, once there were no longer clear obstacles standing
in the way of the couple’s happiness, the court’s judgement added
a monition, warning the husband individually, or both husband and
wife jointly, to treat each other appropriately on pain of an even
greater penalty. This tactic is what Helmholz refers to as “an ami-
cable settlement”: rather than simply grant a judicial separation, the
church courts preferred first (and often second and third) to attempt
reconciliation.12 What is most remarkable is that some couples, like
John and Margaret Colwell, who appeared before the court at Canter-
bury in the year 1454, defied the courts by blatantly refusing to con-
tinue their marriage. When the judge attempted to patch up their
marriage, they argued that they would prefer death in prison than
living together because their relationship had become so violent that
each lived in daily fear of the other. Convinced by their sincerity
and unanimity, the court chose to grant them a separation.13 John and
Margaret’s response makes it clear that not all couples were willing
to submit to the court’s intrusion. However, when no objections were
forthcoming, the decision of the court to resolve rather than dissolve
may have been motivation enough for the couple to revaluate their
relationship and renew their efforts to live peaceably together.
The kind of penalties assigned in cases of spousal abuse as both
penance for past sins and monitions against future transgressions
were typical of the church’s approach to moral offences in general:
floggings and processions in multiples of three, with or without the
added humiliation of the white gown and bare feet. Occasionally the
court imposed penalties that were more severe, signalling that church
officials considered some types of domestic violence to be problems

12
Helmholz, 101.
13
Canterbury Y.1.5, fo. 37v.
74 chapter two

of a more serious nature. For example, the register of the court of

the Dean and Chapter of York recounts the mid-fourteenth century
cases of John Dammsell who not only cohabited with his mistress
Maud of Leck, he also maltreated his wife and did so for three years.
The official of the Dean ordered Dammsell to admit his wife back into
his home and treat her well under the pain of the usual processions
around the church. In addition, the court warned that if they found
he had ignored their authority, he was subject to confiscation of two
measures of wool.14 The threat of amercement by the court was likely
a result of the multiple nature of his crime: he was guilty of long-
standing adultery, spousal eviction and recurrent spousal mistreatment
over the course of a three-year period. Even with the embarrassment
of the court appearance and public confession, John Dammsell was
inclined to be a repeat offender. A man of this nature might be
more apt to listen to reason if he believed his future welfare was in
danger.15
Dammsell’s adultery might have been an additional incentive. The
records reveal that the medieval church was critical of men who
mistreated or ignored their wives out of lust for another. John of
Strensall of York’s punishment is an indication that the courts might
impose steep penalties. He came before the court on charges of for-
nication and spousal maltreatment around the same time as Dammsell.
When he appeared, the official of the Dean warned him to treat his
wife more kindly on pain of 20 shillings.16 Similarly, the consistory
court of York in the early 1370s counselled Richard Epworth not
to revert to his former violent ways on pain of both twelve floggings
around the church and a fine of one hundred shillings, a high price
even for the wealthiest ranks of medieval English society.17 The nature
of John of Strensall’s abuse is not disclosed, but in the case of Richard
Epworth, the records clearly state that the treatment of his wife was

14
York M 2(1) f, fo. 10.
15
Medieval England always took a much harsher approach to repeat offenders,
evidenced by the fact that jurors were far more likely to convict when confronted
by such an individual. See Philippa C. Maddern, Violence and Social Order: East Anglia
1422–1442 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 132; B.W. McLane, “Juror Attitudes
towards Local Disorder: The Evidence of the 1328 Lincolnshire Trailbaston
Proceedings,” in Twelve Good Men and True: The Criminal Trial Jury in England,
1200–1800, ed. J.S. Cockburn and Thomas A. Green (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1988), 36–64.
16
York M 2(1) f, fo. 9.
17
York M 2(1) c, fo. 27.
 types and frequency of abuse 75

severe: not only was he cruel, his discipline was excessive and inde-
cent. The exceptional nature of his misbehaviour was likely the cause
of the stiff financial threat. The court’s monition to his wife also
reflects the severity of the charges: on pain of twenty-four floggings
around the church, they commanded her to obey her husband. By
modern standards, one might have expected the court to grant the
couple a separation on the grounds of cruelty (the requirements for
which, according to their own records, Richard Epworth’s conduct
met—Richard is said to have “fiercely or inappropriately beat[en]
[her], and excessively or indecently castigated [her]”). The ecclesiastical
officials chose instead reconciliation by coercion. It is important to
note here that the records give no indication that his wife Margaret
had actually requested a separation; yet, there is reason to assume
that at least some canonists would agree that a separation was required
in this situation to save a woman from her own passivity. In his
Lectura, Hostiensis comments on the case of a man who suspected
that his wife was having an affair, a suspicion that led him to declare
publicly his intention to kill his wife. Given the gravity of the situation,
he argued, “the wife could hardly be expected to rely on her husband’s
undertaking not to harm her. Hence under these circumstances she
not only had no obligation to return to her husband, but should
even be removed from his control if she were unlucky enough to
fall into it.”18 The English courts seemingly did not adopt this approach
to marriage. Nevertheless, their method may have been equally
effective. The records note no repeat appearances for Richard on
the same charges. Thus, coercion may have been a more successful
tool against domestic violence than one might imagine.
The case of Richard Epworth and his wife Margaret is not the
only incident of domestic violence among the ex officio business of
the courts in which the resolution seems negligent. When John Eget
and his wife appeared before the court at York in 1382 for spousal
non-cohabitation, Alice used the language employed in applications
for judicial separations when she informed the judge that “she did
not dare live with her husband out of fear for her life.” Despite indi-
cations of cruelty, the courts compelled the two to resume co-residence.
In addition, the official of the Dean cautioned John to treat his wife

18
As cited and translated in James A. Brundage, “Domestic Violence in Classical
Canon Law,” in Violence in Medieval Society, ed. Richard W. Kaeuper (Woodbridge:
Boydell Press, 2000), 190.
76 chapter two

with marital affection or suffer the penalty of twelve floggings around

the cathedral church at York.19 If the abuse inflicted upon Alice Eget
was so extreme that she feared he might someday kill her, how advis-
able was their reconciliation? Moreover, why was his monition so
petty? Clearly, there was more to this case than meets the eye. An
inquiry into the circumstances of abuse might have revealed that
Alice exaggerated the degree of violence in an effort to manipulate
the court. Alternatively, John may have presented proof of his wife’s
antagonism, making her the scapegoat for his actions. None the less,
the cases of both Richard Epworth and John Eget serve to confirm
the observations that Donahue draws from the success rates of mar-
riage litigation: the church courts of medieval England shared a
strong “presumption in favour of marriage.”20
The mid-fourteenth century case of Roger Fouk of Allerston (Yorks.)
typifies this approach. The official of the Dean summoned Roger
before the court on a number of different transgressions. First, he
was engaged in an adulterous affair with a woman named Margaret
Schephird to whom he was related within the fourth degree. Second,
the records stress that Roger maltreated his wife. He continually
“beat her and even wounded her arm.” Given the nature of the
abuse, one might expect a harsh ruling, but Roger’s punishment was
only slightly more severe than that of other unruly husbands presented
before the court. The official of the Dean required him to treat his
wife more kindly, on pain of six days in procession around the cathe-
dral church at York, and also at Pickering and Malton.21
While the records are usually silent on the nature of the abuse,
the account of Geoffrey of Rainsforth’s (Yorks.) mistreatment of his
wife Emma highlights the egregious features of his behaviour. The
notion in the court book for the years 1372–5 describes Geoffrey as
“exercising cruelty towards his wife on a daily basis.”22 The inclusion
of the frequency with which he beat his wife shows that, in the eyes
of the court, this behaviour was intolerable. The record also states
that Geoffrey did not hesitate to use weapons as well as his hands

19
York M 2(1) f, fo. 23.
20
Charles Donahue, Jr., “Female Plaintiffs in Marriage Cases in the Court of York
in the Later Middle Ages: What can we learn from the Numbers?,” in Wife and Widow
in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1993), 191.
21
York M 2(1) f, fo. 10.
22
York M 2(1) c, fo. 31.
 types and frequency of abuse 77

and feet, asserting once again that he chastised his wife excessively
and indecently. These details provide a better understanding of eccle-
siastical perceptions of domestic violence. Geoffrey’s case makes plain
that even in domestic warfare weapons were not acceptable. The
subject of weapons in household management was a delicate issue.
For example, a Chancery petition concerning the beating of a York-
shire servant, Thomas Lincolne, argues that his master, John Hewett,
a shearman, beat him “with tongs of iron and such other unreason-
able weapons.” Lincolne’s bill employs the phrase “unreasonable
beating” more than once, and notes that he wishes Hewett to take
him back into his service only if he could “use himself reasonably
toward him.” 23 Lincolne’s claim reinforces Geoffrey’s presentment,
suggesting that chastisement of an inferior remained within the realm
of discipline only if weapons were not involved. While Hewett’s pun-
ishment is not recorded, the York consistory court ordered Geoffrey
of Rainsforth to treat his wife better on pain of one hundred shillings
and public processions around the church on six consecutive Sundays.
Public penance and monition were probably the most popular
methods of dealing with cases of domestic violence, but they were
not the only methods. In cases of abuse, as in other moral offences,
ecclesiastical judges might insist on a guarantee of the husband’s
future behaviour. Usually referred to as a cautio, it might take sev-
eral forms: a pledge of money or goods, a personal promise on oath
to improve one’s behaviour, or guarantee by sureties, meaning men
of good reputation who were willing to pledge future good conduct.
English church courts frequently employed all three forms of cautio
in cases of domestic violence. For example, when the York consistory
court summoned Thomas Catryk for exhibiting cruelty to his wife
(his enraged father-in-law appears to have been the court’s leading
witness), it required Thomas to produce sureties for his future good
conduct.24 If he reverted to his old behaviour, the court would subject
his pledges to a financial penalty. This was a strategic move. The
church was deliberately involving the wider community in order to
enforce its rulings. The cautio made Thomas responsible not only to
the church, but also to friends and family members who trusted his

23
TNA C1/324/12 (c. 1504 × 1509). The use of weapons in domestic violence
will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Four.
24
York Cons AB/3, f. 6.
78 chapter two

word enough to lay their own reputations, not to mention their

purses, on the line. This was probably an effective strategy in deal-
ing with abuse. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to public intervention
in cases of domestic violence was the personal nature of the offence. It
is not always obvious that marital strife should have been a matter
for public or legal resolution. Nevertheless, a cautio went to great
lengths to make spousal abuse everyone else’s business.
The registers of the archbishops for both ecclesiastical provinces
also demonstrate that spousal mistreatment was a part of married
life at all levels of society. Although the published registers offer only
fifteen additional cases, they do demonstrate that even husbands of
the gentry and nobility sometimes needed the occasional reprimand
by the church in order to treat their wives appropriately.25 Cases of
abuse in these records bring to light a similar approach to their res-
olution adopted by the courts, irrespective of the higher ranks of
those involved. For example, a commission to the Dean of Westbere
in 1296 to inquire into the case of a man who continued to treat
his wife cruelly demonstrates that, even in the marriages of those at
the upper ranks of society, the church was determined to uphold the
sacrament. The man, referred to simply as “A. de N.,” was known
“to beat his wife Alice greatly” and “to wound her on several occa-
sions.” He treated his wife “badly” and “dangerously,” alluding that
his abuse might well prove fatal if unchecked.26 Here, the court
recognised that the degree of violence exhibited in the conduct of
A. de N. towards his wife Alice exceeded the acceptable bounds of
wife chastisement, and indeed met the legal requirements for a divorce
a mensa et thoro. None the less, in keeping with the tendency witnessed
in the act books of the church, Archbishop Winchelsey chose not to
set the couple on the road to separation, but instead to demand sim-
ply that the man discontinue his ill conduct and treat his wife with
marital affection. While this ruling confirms the court’s desire to
uphold the bond of marriage wherever possible, the judgement in
this case demonstrates that even among the propertied classes, this

25
Published registers were used for the following years: York 1215–1255, 1266–1279,
1279–1285, 1286–1296, 1300–1304, 1306–1315, 1317–1340, 1397, 1398–1405, and
1480–1500; Canterbury 1279–1292, 1294–1313, 1366–1368, 1414–1443, 1454–1486,
and 1468–1500; London 1362–1375.
26
Rose Graham, ed., Registrum Roberti Winchelsey, Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, A.D.
1294 –1313, 2 vols (Canterbury and York Society, v. 51–2, 1952–56), 1.83–4.
 types and frequency of abuse 79

approach was appropriate. For this case to come to the personal

attention of the archbishop, either Alice or representatives on her
behalf must have petitioned privately. Access to the archbishop, in
and of itself, establishes Alice’s high social standing. The level of
abuse described by Alice suggests a sanctioned separation might have
been in order. Nevertheless, she had not requested one. The social
mortification and economic difficulties that accompanied a separa-
tion among couples of property were probably not very appealing
to Alice. That she turned to the court for assistance in her marital
difficulties shows that some Englishmen and women believed the
court to be an effective instrument in curbing the behaviour of abu-
sive husbands.
The monitions threatened in cases of moral transgressions in the
archbishops’ registers reflect the greater accessibility of disposable
cash among the accused. The archbishop’s registers measured penal-
ties in pounds, not shillings. When the official of the archbishop of
York summoned John husband of Julianne, daughter of Sir Walter
de Stirtheley, before the court for failing to treat his wife with marital
affection, the court ordered him to adhere to his wife and treat her
more kindly on pain of £20, no small sum in late thirteenth-century
England, even for a member of this rank.27 There was a general
tendency in sexual offences to view men as the instigators and to
penalise them more harshly accordingly. For example, in the 1298–9
case of Sampson de Strelley, accused both of failing to treat his wife
with marital affection and committing adultery with Elisabeth of
Clipstone, the record describes Sampson as being the party wholly
at fault. Sampson held Elisabeth for many years as his mistress, and
consequently not only “exposed her soul to danger,” but made her
the subject of “manifest scandal in the church.” The official of the
archbishop of York ordered Sampson and Elisabeth to refrain from
any further contact of this nature on penalty of a £20 fine at the
expense of Sampson de Strelley, and Sampson was required to treat
his wife properly. Elisabeth of Clipstone did not escape entirely with-
out punishment. For her part in this sinful activity, she was required
to perform public penance of floggings on three days around the
parish church of Oxcombe. The divergence in penalties may signal

27
William Brown, ed., The Register of John Le Romeyn, Lord Archbishop of York,
1286–1296, 2 vols (Surtees Society, v. 123 and 128, 1913–17), 1. nos. 257, 280–81.
80 chapter two

a number of different approaches. The church courts perhaps con-

sidered a monetary fine a more appropriate deterrent than public
penance for a man of this status. Sampson’s weightier punishment
may also underline the dual nature of his sin; as an adulterer and
an abuser, Sampson had earned his punishment.28 Similarly, in 1310
when Henry of Rockley and Douce, wife of Thomas de la Chaumbre,
appeared before the court at York on charges of adultery, the arch-
bishop ordered them immediately to abjure further sin. If they con-
tinued their sinful activities, Henry would be subject to a penalty of
£20. Douce’s monition was not of a financial nature; rather, if she
engaged in further adultery, she would do so on pain of twelve
floggings, six around the parish church of Derfeld, three around the
market of Barnsley, and three around that of Rotherham.29 While
the record does not describe Henry as a wife-beater, the disparity
in fines is hard to disregard. As in the case of Elisabeth of Clipstone,
Douce’s monition was embarrassing and unpleasant in nature, but
it was much less severe than the heavy fine imposed on her lover. Le
Romeyn and Greenfield most likely spared these women the severity
of a financial exaction because they were married: their unwitting,
and most likely innocent, husbands would have been responsible for
paying the fines. Husbands bore the financial burdens of marriage.
Although both husbands might have preferred to conceal the crime
and thus avoid embarrassment by paying their wives’ fines, as penance,
amercement failed to impact those in need of punishment and con-
trition: the wives themselves.
The church recognised that specific problems in the marriage might
often provoke abuse: while adultery was foremost among these factors,
monitions to women like Margaret Epworth, requiring her to obey
her husband on pain of twenty-four floggings, lead us to the conclusion
that church courts identified disobedient wives as a cause of marital
disputes. The medieval church acknowledged a number of other causes
of abuse. What is important is that the church not only recognised
that abuse was merely a symptom of greater problems in the marriage,
but it set out to resolve these problems before reconciling the couple.
The approach adopted by the courts of the medieval church might

28
Brown, The Register of John Le Romeyn, 1. nos. 247, 272–3.
29
William Brown and A. Hamilton Thompson, ed., The Register of William of
Greenfield, Lord Archbishop of York, 1306–1315, 5 vols (Surtees Society, v. 145, 149, and
151–3, 1931–40), 1. nos. 904, 94.
 types and frequency of abuse 81

be callous in this respect: individuals or couples were subject to

threats of, or actual instances of, public penance and costly fines. More-
over, the courts made an effort to involve the greater community:
neighbours, friends and family witnessed the spectacle of floggings
and processions, and financial guarantees of the abuser’s future behav-
iour drew them into the supervision of marriage. Perhaps, what is
most striking is that the church employed these same methods regard-
less of rank or place in society; the only difference between the treat-
ment of the upper and lower ranks seems to have been the amount
of money involved. A sliding scale of penalties existed, uniquely asso-
ciated with the wealth and situation of the individuals involved.
Irrespective of wealth or the level of violence, however, it seems clear
that the church was determined to keep couples together. In mari-
tal litigation, the church courts assumed the role of “a rather heavy-
handed marriage counsellor”: it was their intention to keep the
marriage together whenever possible.30 The church espoused this
approach even where the levels of abuse might have seemed to jus-
tify a separation.

Regulating Spousal Abuse: the Manorial Courts

In cases in which the abuse was repeated and immoderate, but con-
sidered by local notables to lack the seriousness required for a sep-
aration, manorial or borough courts sometimes adopted a disciplinary
role, although the records indicate that locals only stepped in to han-
dle exceptional cases. The manorial courts were more inclined to
deal with cases arising from marital strife, rather than spousal abuse
itself. In addressing moral transgressions in this way the jurisdiction
of the local courts encroached on that of the ecclesiastical courts.
The manorial and borough courts complemented the church courts,
by addressing those spiritual issues that most affected the well being
of the community. In their fervour to uphold the marriage bond, the
local courts also tried to assume the role of ‘marriage counsellor.’ As
in the case of ex officio records, the manorial and borough records
offer only a smattering of cases of spousal abuse; no more than
twenty identifiable cases have survived from the manor and borough

30
Helmholz, 101.
82 chapter two

courts under investigation in this study, and many of these do not

offer a clear explanation as to what transpired between the couple,
causing one or the other of the pair to appear in court.31 Nevertheless,
what few details are included demonstrate that the medieval laity
were not only determined to include themselves in the regulation of
marital violence, and also that they made qualitative judgements
about the nature of the violence involved.
The raising of the hue brought a number of violent couples before
the courts. A case from a Wakefield (Yorks.) tourn of 1339 notes, “the
wife of Robert de Sandale justly raised the hue on Robert her hus-
band who is amerced 3d. Robert de Sandale justly raised the hue
on his wife who is amerced 3d.”32 Similar entries can be found in
the records of the local courts from Essex during the same period.
In the vill of Nazeing in 1409, the wife of Robert Halmond raised
the hue on her husband, who was in mercy; in Earls Colne in 1435
William Morce raised the hue unjustly on his wife Katherine and
was amerced two pence.33 At the very least, judgements of this nature
tell us that manorial courts considered a husband or wife capable
of justly raising the hue on his or her spouse. Given that the rules
of coverture, which forbade husbands and wives from pleading suits
against one another, extended frequently into the manorial courts,
the appearance of these cases suggests that domestic violence was
considered a worthy exception to the rule. That these cases appear
in the records speaks to the frequency with which marital violence was

31
The manor and borough courts examined in the course of this investigation
were: Bradford (1338–9 to 1392–3); Colchester (1310–1352, 1352–1367, and 1372–
1379); Earls Colne (1400–1521); Nazeing (1400–01, 1408–1410, 1414–15, 1421–22
and 1464–5), Pontefract (1427–29); Sheffield (1384–5 to 1515); Thorner (fourteenth-
century records); Tickhill Honour (1509–15); and Wakefield (1274–1297, 1286,
1297–1309, 1313–1316, 1315–1317, 1322–1331, 1331–1333, 1338–1340, 1348–1350,
1350–1352).
32
K.M. Troup, ed., The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield from October 1338 to
September 1340 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 2nd ser., v. 12,
1999), 78.
33
TNA SC 2/173 33 m. 8; manorial records for the county of Essex are housed
at the Essex Record Office (hereafter abbreviated as ERO). See ERO D/DPr68.
This study examines the court records for the manor of Earls Colne in Essex in
translation, using Alan Macfarlane’s microfiche collection entitled Records of an English
Village Earls Colne, 1400–1750 (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1980–81), http://www.
colnevalley.com/Ecrecords.htm. Macfarlane uses a complex notational system involv-
ing a series of lengthy references numbers for each record. For simplicity’s sake all
references to ERO records in this book refer instead to the original manuscript,
rather than Macfarlane’s microfiche.
 types and frequency of abuse 83

resolved within the community. In fact, the Wakefield court inter-

vened regularly in disruptive marriages, and cases of domestic violence
appear in the Wakefield manorial rolls at least every three years.34
Obviously, one case cannot account for the entire manor’s marital
difficulties over the course of a three-year period; more likely this
figure represents the frequency with which the friends and neighbours
felt it was necessary to supplement the work of the church courts
by dealing with the behaviour of those couples who seemed beyond
the control of the church or the community at large. The decision
to describe these offences as the ‘just’ or ‘unjust’ raising of the hue
give us some indication of the nature of the role played by the mano-
rial court as judge. This was a qualitative assessment; the courts were
defining what level of violence warranted the raising of the hue. It
is unfortunate that the records did not include the deliberations that
led to these verdicts.
Very few cases within the manorial courts addressed recognisable
instances of physical assault between spouses. In fact, there were only
three examples: one case from Colchester (Essex) in 1374 of John
Gardener’s wife drawing blood from her husband, and two cases
from Wakefield tourns. In 1308, Julianne Wade drew blood from
her husband William le Couhird; in 1340, John Edelot’s wife drew
blood from her husband.35 Given that the fourteenth-century court
records from Colchester note 606 other cases of assault, the low rate
of spousal assault in Colchester probably stems from a reluctance to
deal with cases of physical violence in marriage rather than from
low levels of physical violence in general. Manorial records from
Earls Colne (Essex) support this idea. In the period 1400–1521, 277
cases of assault appeared before the manor and priory courts; none
of these was between spouses. Those cases that did appear before
local courts, then, most likely represent couples whose behaviour had
exceeded the capacities of unofficial local controls. Nevertheless, these
few cases are revealing. Both Wakefield assaults include notice of the
fine exacted on the defendant: the court required Julianne Wade

34
Barbara A. Hanawalt, “Women before the Law: Females as Felons and Prey
in Fourteenth-Century England,” in Women and the Law, ed. D.K. Weisberg (2 vols,
Cambridge: Schenkman, 1982), 1.180.
35
Isaac Herbert Jeayes, ed. and trans., Court Rolls of the Borough of Colchester (3 vols,
Colchester, 1921), iii.54; W.P. Baildon, ed. and trans., Court Rolls of the Manor of
Wakefield, 1274–1297, v. 1 and 2 (2 vols, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record
Series v. 29 and 36, 1901–06), 2.185, 1.221.
84 chapter two

and the wife of John Edelot to pay twelve pence each to the court
for their violent behaviour. This was a typical sum. In this respect,
the court treated domestic assaults no differently than any other
offence. It is noteworthy that in each of these cases the court punished
the wife, not the husband, for unruly conduct. In this sense, pre-
sentment may have performed a dual function. By openly humiliating
the wife for her aggressive behaviour, the court encouraged her to
reform; at the same time, presentment served to embarrass the hus-
band also by highlighting his inability to manage a home.
Local elites were also concerned with reconciling separated couples
who had a history of abuse. A case from 1331 provides a glimpse
of the court’s supervisory role:
Sureties for Thomas s[on]of John Kenward, that he will be reconciled
with Agnes his wife, and will treat her well—William Wade, Nicholas
de Ananden, Adam Wade and John Couper. And if he fails and should
be convicted, the sureties bind themselves to the lord in 40 s.36
Forty shillings was a significant sum of money. Such a steep penalty
indicates that the courts considered wife abuse to be a serious matter.
While the nature of the abuse was not addressed in this account, the
demand that Thomas treat his wife well was a fairly formulaic state-
ment employed by church courts to allude to a husband’s former
violent ways. At the same time, this case indicates a significant
difference between the church’s and manorial courts’ approaches to
spousal violence: while the church was determined to eliminate the
cause of marital violence, this court dealt only with the effect.
In addressing cases of domestic violence, the manorial courts over-
lapped the jurisdiction of the church; there is also some evidence that
manorial courts were willing to encroach on the jurisdiction of the
king’s courts in marital affairs. For example, in 1326 when Margery,
wife of Richard Child of Wakefield, ran away with her lover Robert
del Clif, her husband took his revenge by suing Robert for ravish-
ment of wife and the goods that disappeared with her. For his loss,
Richard demanded compensation of twenty shillings, suggesting that
spousal desertion was not a matter to be taken lightly.37 Common

36
John Lister, ed., Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, 1315–1317, v. 4 (Yorkshire
Archaeological Society Record Series, v. 78, 1930), 181.
37
J.P. Walker, ed. and trans., Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, 1322–1331,
v. 5 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, v. 109, 1945), 93.
 types and frequency of abuse 85

law generally considered trespassory ravishment of wives part of its

jurisdiction. Sue Sheridan Walker describes these actions as ‘con-
sensual abduction’: she argues that “[t]he wives in question were
probably not only willing but had their portable possessions packed
awaiting the arrival of their abductors.”38 She maintains further that
this was an explicit “extension of control by women over their lives
and marriages,” and that by allowing themselves to be abducted,
unhappy wives were consciously acting out a wish to bring an end
to their marriages.39 Most plaintiffs who appeared in the royal courts
with pleas of ravishment probably had given up on their marriages
and wished only compensation. That the royal courts recognised and
accommodated this legal fiction is not entirely unexpected: studies
of the common law and its courts have shown that plaintiffs employed
legal fictions both to get cases into court, and to gain a sympathetic
audience.40 Invention of this nature in the manorial courts, where
legal precedent did not provide the same kind of constraints on the
process, is much less common. In the case of Richard Child, he was
adopting the same strategy as those who sued their cases in the royal
courts: a suit in court against the wife’s lover, demand for com-
pensation for goods taken at the time of abduction, no demand for
restoration of the abducted wife. Why Richard chose to take his case
to the manor rather than a royal court remains a mystery. The value
of the goods may have been insufficient to make the case worthy of
the common law courts; it is also possible that Richard thought he
would receive a more judicious ruling from his peers, who had a
more intimate knowledge of the situation and those involved. The
decision of the manor court to entertain this case is an indication
that the latter may well have been the case. Moreover, its appear-
ance in the records of the manorial courts signifies that even these
courts recognised that some marriages are beyond repair. The story
of Richard Child and his wife Margery does not end there. A case
from the following year shows that Richard and Margery had not
yet resolved their difficulties: “Richard Childe found pledges, that is
Richard del Bothes and Robert son of Gilbert, that he receive his

38
Sue Sheridan Walker, “Punishing convicted ravishers: statutory strictures and
actual practice in thirteenth and fourteenth-century England,” Journal of Medieval
History 13 (1987): 239.
39
Walker, “Punishing convicted ravishers,” 238.
40
See S.F.C. Milsom, Studies in the History of the Common Law (London: Ronceverte,
1983), 28.
86 chapter two

wife in his house and treat her agreeably and provide for her faith-
fully and courteously to the best of his ability etc.”41
Although the records of the local courts provide only glimpses of
domestic violence, there are a sufficient number to suggest that the
families and neighbours thought manorial and borough courts were
appropriate forums for the resolution of marital disputes. This is not
difficult to comprehend. The representatives of the court were usually
family, neighbours and friends of the couples they presented. These
records highlight the unofficial role played regularly by these same
individuals in the regulation of spousal abuse; when the level of vio-
lence exceeded informal controls, the local court stepped in as an
extension of this familiar supervision. Public presentment before the
court, the imposition of a fine, and the request to find sureties for
one’s behaviour may have been a sufficiently humiliating process to
deter any future recurrences of the kind of behaviour that landed
the couple in court in the first place.

Spousal Homicide: the King’s Courts

In cases of heightened violence, leading to the death of a spouse,

the royal courts, under the aegis first of the county coroner then the
justices of eyre or assize, assumed the responsibility for investigating
and punishing the crime. Spousal homicide is a reasonable indica-
tor of levels of extreme marital violence. Although homicide is a
severe form of spousal abuse, it is the most unequivocal and is gen-
erally subject to detection. Bruises and emotional scarring are easily
hidden; a corpse is not. The records suggest that spousal homicide
was a rare occurrence; and yet, when it did occur, the crime had
gendered features. For men, spouse-murder was a solitary crime; but
not for women. This finding may reflect contemporary perceptions
of the crime. The common law treated wife killing as if it were any
other felonious homicide; husband killing, on the other hand, belonged
to a completely different category of crime: petty treason. Juries may
have considered a transgression of that nature by a woman to require
the conspiracy of a number of actors. Regardless of the distinction

41
Sue Sheridan Walker, ed. and trans., The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield
from October 1331 to September 1333 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series,
2nd ser., v. 3, 1983), 72.
 types and frequency of abuse 87

between the two, most spouse-killers did not stand trial for their actions,
and those who did were usually acquitted. A low rate of convictions
does not imply that medieval juries were unconcerned with instances
of domestic homicide; rather, it reflects both the difficulties of law
enforcement in a time before institutions developed to address the
issue, and a system of justice that medieval men and women often
deemed too harsh to meet the crime.
While jurors generally perceived spousal homicide as being an
especially repugnant felony, the sex of the offender deeply influenced
the handling of the case in the common law courts. The decision
of Parliament to distinguish the killing of a husband and a wife as
two different categories of crimes marks an expectation that the courts
wished to deal with murderous wives more severely. After the draft-
ing of the 1352 statute of treason, which sought to clarify the various
acts that constituted the offence, royal courts interpreted the homicide
of a superior by an inferior (such as a wife killing her husband, a
servant his or her master, a cleric his prelate) as a form of treason.42
The statute did not employ any specialised terminology to distin-
guish between the two main forms of treason (crimes directed against
the person of the king, and the homicide of a superior); however,
the written evidence confirms that this differentiation was already in
place by the early fifteenth century.43 In fact, Bellamy has traced the
emergence of petty treason to an even earlier period, noting “at the
end of the thirteenth century there was more than one type of trea-
son, one kind being an offence committed against a man’s immediate
lord rather than the king.”44 A wife’s attack on her husband fell into
this category. English society expected a woman of the upper ranks
to consider her husband ‘mon baron.’ The language itself signifies
that a wife’s relationship with her husband resembled that of lord
and vassal. Hence, spousal homicide was effectively treason.
In the king’s courts, the trial of both kinds of spousal homicide
was identical: petty treason required no special forum or judicial for-
mality. In fact, often the only indication in the records of the courts
that a homicide had been categorised as treason rather than felony
was the penalty assigned to the offender. Men convicted of petty

42
25 Edward III st. 5, c. 2.
43
See J.G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages (London
and Toronto: Routledge, 1970), 229.
44
Bellamy, 226.
88 chapter two

treason were drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle and then

hanged.45 The intention, of course, was both punitive and didactic:
not only was the convict shamed publicly, the display acted as a
graphic warning to spectators of the harsh treatment doled out to
those who violated the social hierarchy. When compared with the
disembowelment and decapitation typically assigned to men convicted
of high treason, the unique punishment assigned to social transgressors
made a point, albeit in a less harsh way. For women, however, the
distinction between petty and high treason did not affect their penalty.
The willingness of common law justices to equate petty and high
treason where women were concerned speaks to the dual nature of
the transgression. Women who slew their husbands were guilty not
only of violating the social hierarchy, but also of undermining the
gender hierarchy. In this climate, their crime was as egregious and
socially disruptive as an attack on the life of the king. This percep-
tion was emphasised doubly in the penalties assigned for spousal
homicide: while a man was hanged like any other felon, a woman
was burned at the stake, a much more painful and prolonged form
of execution than simple hanging. The differential treatment is under-
scored by the willingness of jurors at times to prosecute cases of
attempted petty treason as if they had been successful.46 Traditional
jurisprudence drew a careful distinction between the will and the
act; however, as Kiralfy has noted, until well into the early seventeenth
century, “cases of attempted murder [were] only penalised as such
if they [might] be fitted within the traditional boundaries of petty
treason.”47
The records of coroners’ rolls and gaol deliveries taken together
furnish information on 9294 victims of violent crimes for the county
of York, and 1713 for the county of Essex.48 Of the former, 7300
were victims of suspected homicide, with 189 described as victims
of spousal homicides. Cases of spouse-murder amount to less than
three percent of all surviving reported homicides in Yorkshire at this
time, and an even smaller percentage (two percent) of all alleged
violent crimes. In comparison, domestic homicides by family members

45
Bellamy, 20.
46
Albert Kiralfy, “Taking the Will for the Deed: The Mediaeval Criminal
Attempt,” Journal of Legal History, 13 (1992): 95.
47
Kiralfy, 98–99.
48
Here I have defined ‘violence’ as anything physical, thus: homicide, suicide,
self-defence, assault, rape, abduction, and unlawful imprisonment.
 types and frequency of abuse 89

apart from spouses for the county taken together represent only two
percent of the alleged homicides during the period in question, or
fewer than two percent of all violent crimes.49 These figures lead us
towards two distinct conclusions. First, neither spousal homicide nor
domestic homicide in general accounted for many of the total number
of slayings in the county of York during the later Middle Ages.
Individuals were far more likely to die at the hands of a neighbour
or someone else within their vill than of those of their own family.
Second, although domestic homicide was a rare event, when members
of a family slew a relative, the victim was most often a spouse.
The figures are substantially lower for the county of Essex than
they are for Yorkshire. However, the Essex totals reflect the county’s
size and in general terms the patterns are the same in both counties.
Of the 1560 victims of suspected homicide in Essex, juries reported
only forty-four cases of spouse slaying, or three percent of the total
number of homicides, a slightly higher percentage than that of York-
shire. In terms of family killings in general, the Essex figures, like those
of York, show that spousal homicide was by far the most frequent
manifestation of intra-familial deaths. Less than two percent of the
total number of homicides for the entire county occurred at the
hands of a family member other than a spouse.
This data represent indictments only and thus does not reflect
actual rates of homicide in the late medieval period. Many people
accused of homicide were found innocent of the crime, and acquitted.
Accordingly, the percentages mentioned above may well present a
distorted vision of late medieval crime. Nevertheless, these figures
are informative given the vital role played by members of the com-
munity in the indictment process. The fact that the communities of
Yorkshire and Essex pointed a finger at a spouse in each of these
situations suggests that these 233 cases represent histories of poor

49
The definition of ‘domestic’ has been construed in the broadest sense possible
to include the modern definition of ‘family’ (that is, parents and their children and
any in-law relationships that fall within these parameters), as well as all master-
servant relationships. Owing to the frequency of the practice and the relationship
of the master towards his servants, historians have come to view servants or appren-
tices as a somewhat extended part of the family. See Barbara Hanawalt, The Ties
that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University Press,
1986), 90–104; Alan Macfarlane, Marriage and Love in England 1300–1840 (Oxford:
B. Blackwell, 1986), 83–7; and, J.M. Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 54–64.
90 chapter two

relations that, in turn, led neighbours to believe that a domestic spat

had spiralled out of control.
Of the 233 cases in which a spouse was accused of conjugal homi-
cide, 152 (or 65 percent) were alleged uxoricides, or wife-killings. The
husband, in these cases was almost always suspected as the principal
offender (the person who actually carried out the crime). In total,
juries accused 133 out of the 152 wife killers (or 88 percent) of acting
without any assistance, confirming that wife killing was a solitary act.
Bearing in mind J.B. Given’s observation that “the most striking fea-
ture of medieval homicide [is] its markedly collective character,” the
predominance of wife-slayers working alone is suggestive, highlighting
the power relationship within marriage.50 In the few cases in which
a wife-killer did engage the assistance of an accomplice, he usually
chose to work with a man, or a group of men, unrelated to either
the victim or the accused.51 Only two accomplices were family mem-
bers of the accused.
In stark contrast stand the details of cases in which the husband,
rather than the wife, was the victim. Some eighty-one of the 233 spousal
homicides that occurred in Yorkshire and Essex consisted of husband-
killings (35 percent). Here, the wife was listed only thirty-four times
(or 42 percent) as having committed the crime on her own. Out of
the forty-seven husband slayings carried out with the assistance of
others, the rolls described the wife twenty-four times as being only
an accomplice to the crime, aiding, abetting and procuring the crime
while a male principal carried it out. It is possible that medieval
jurors found it difficult to imagine a wife capable of committing such
a monstrous crime without the guidance of others.52 At times, lay-
ing the blame against a wife may not have been easy. For example,
in two separate records of a Yorkshire case, although the wife is
described as a principle in her husband’s slaying, only one record
actually gives her a name. She is described merely as “the wife of

50
J.B. Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth-Century England (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1977), 41.
51
Only thirty-four accomplices aided in uxoricides. Of these thirty-four, ten were
identifiably female, twenty-three male. The gender of one accomplice, however,
remains a mystery. The accomplice is identified as Cassander child of William of
Cawood of Bilton. With such an unusual name, it is too difficult to postulate this
accomplice’s gender with any precision. See TNA JUST 2/242, m. 5.
52
Paul Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 129.
 types and frequency of abuse 91

Roger Rudbrade” while the two other principals are identified clearly,
implying that she was not, in fact, the leader of this criminal trio.53
In cases where accomplices are included, husband-killers evidently
demonstrated the same disposition towards male accomplices. Of
eighty identifiable accomplices, sixty-nine were male, eleven female,
exposing the false reality of inflated male fears of wives soliciting
murderous assistance from their female friends. Unlike wife-slayers,
however, husband-killers were more likely (but only marginally so)
to turn to a member of their household for support in their deed.
The rolls identify ten of the eighty accomplices as members of the
accused’s household. The decision of spouses to turn to members of
their households to resolve their marital difficulties may have been
a natural one.

Acquittal Rates and Medieval Justice

The court’s failure to prosecute adequately cases of spousal homi-

cide is evident in high acquittal rates. In the sixty cases of uxoricide
from both counties that actually went to trial, juries overwhelmingly
found in favour of the defendant: there were forty-six acquittals,54
ten hangings, two convictions (without any indication of the penalty
assigned), one judgement of sine die and one case of peine forte et dure.
Thus, the conviction rate of accused wife-killers was only 22 percent
(13 out 60). An accused petty traitor faced much greater odds, with
a 35 percent chance of conviction (17 out of 49). Of the forty-nine
cases of husband-killing tried before royal justices in the courts of
medieval Yorkshire and Essex, thirty-two women were acquitted,
fourteen burned, two hanged, and another convicted (without any
indication of the penalty assigned). These figures are typical of execu-
tion rates for general homicide in the medieval period. For example,

53
This case appears first as a presentment in TNA JUST 2/217, m. 8. It appears
again in an almost identical format, but without the wife’s name in TNA JUST
2/218, m. 5.
54
At least two of these acquittals were most likely granted on the grounds of
insanity: the case of Richard Sharp of Maltby (TNA JUST 3/74, m. 3/14), and
the case of William Proudfoot of Barnby. Although the records do not indicate that
a plea of insanity was put forward in William’s case, the fact that he not only killed
his wife Joan, but also his eighteen-week-old son suggests that his acquittal was
granted on that basis. See TNA JUST 2/227, m. 10.
92 chapter two

J.B. Given observes a 29.9 percent execution rate for indicted felons
who appeared before the court to stand trial in the thirteenth cen-
tury.55 This is not significantly different from either a twenty percent
execution rate for wife-killers, or thirty-five percent for husband-
killers. None the less, all of these figures are much lower than one
might expect. When execution was the only acceptable penalty, trial
juries were likely to acquit. However, execution may not have been
the goal of an indictment. While medieval jurors were reluctant to
impose the death penalty, they knew that indictment itself was a
humiliating process that severely damaged the reputation of the defen-
dant. Moreover, time spent in gaol awaiting delivery was a costly
and horrific procedure. The accused might easily spend up to a year
or two awaiting his trial, during which time the court expected him
to pay for all his expenses, and to endure unhealthy and dangerous
living conditions. Trial jurors probably perceived indictment itself
adequate as a punishment.56
Trial juries were not the only obstacle to royal justice. The failure
of grand juries to present felonies may have aggravated the situation
by permitting known offenders to re-offend. For example, when
Robert Frere of Crofton (Yorks.) came before the king’s justices in
1346, the court charged him with multiple crimes. First, that on the
Monday before All Saints in the year 1339, he feloniously slew his
wife Cecilia at Crofton. More than a year later authorities accused
him of feloniously burgling the grange of James of Crofton, and then
fleeing with goods valued at five shillings.57 A period of seven years
between Frere’s second crime and his trial seems excessive. It is prob-
able that, like most medieval felons, Frere fled the scene of the crime.
Court officials may have captured him later, or Frere turned himself
in once he was convinced that his chances of acquittal had improved.58

55
Given, 97.
56
Barbara A. Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict in English Communities 1300 –1348
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 267.
57
TNA JUST 3/78, m. 46d.
58
Some cases of spousal homicide took a very long time indeed to come to trial.
For example, when Thomas de Wod finally appeared before royal justices in 1341
to answer charges of having slain his wife Margaret, twenty-five years had passed
since her death (TNA JUST 3/77, m. 4/11d). Similarly, William Cryske managed
to elude justice for sixteen years after the death of his wife Alice (TNA JUST
3/176, m. 14). Both men were acquitted; in all likelihood, the verdict in each case
reflects the difficulty of trying a case after members of the community had long
since forgotten what happened.
 types and frequency of abuse 93

The year-long hiatus between crimes, however, is inexplicable. The

exact date identified in the document makes it clear that Cecilia’s
death did not go unnoticed. If the jury was confident enough in
their evidence to indict Robert for her death, how, in good conscience,
might they, or other members of his community, have permitted
him to roam free for a whole year, allowing him to commit a sec-
ond crime?
The case of John Walker of Great Driffield (Yorks.) provides a fur-
ther example of how failure to prosecute a felon might have dangerous
ramifications. When Walker appeared before the king’s court at York
in 1366, they accused him of slaying not one, but two wives. His
first wife, Cecilia, daughter of Robert Donays, met her death on the
Sunday before St Martin in the year 1362. His second wife, Cecilia,
formerly wife of William de Cayton, died on the Saturday after the
feast of Saints Peter and Paul two years later.59
Most spouse-killers evaded prosecution in the courts of later medieval
England. Similar to most medieval felons, the majority of accused
spouse-murderers (56 percent) fled the scene of the crime and were
never heard from again. In these instances, the sheriff immediately
began the process of exaction. After a suspected felon failed to appear
at five sessions of the county court, the sheriff proceeded to outlawry.
An outlaw forfeited the protections and privileges of the law, and if
captured, might be beheaded on sight (at least until the fourteenth
century when legislation forbidding this practice was enacted). More-
over, people who harboured a known felon or even permitted one
to enter their home were indictable at law, and ran the risk of hang-
ing. Outlawry was a great disadvantage. As a minimum, it required
the felon to resettle in a new village or town, a difficult process in
a world where one’s wealth lay in inherited property. None the less,
outlawry was not as harsh as the laws might suggest. Naomi Hurnard
argues, “many outlaws remained in England and did not lose contact
with their families and neighbours. Some settled successfully and
undetected under new names in new localities. Those who went
abroad could find new friends there or at any rate settle down and
earn a sufficient livelihood.”60 Hurnard’s vision highlights once again
the gap between legal requirements and popular perceptions of

59
TNA JUST 3/155, m. 7d.
60
Hurnard, The King’s Pardon for Homicide, pp. 33–4.
94 chapter two

culpability. The discrepancy of gender in flight figures of accused

persons supports the hypothesis that neighbours and friends simply
allowed some wife-killers to escape because they believed the wife
had gotten what she deserved. While sixty-eight percent of wife-killers
fled the scene of the crime and failed to reappear, only thirty-five
percent of petty traitors attempted flight.61
Not all spouse-murderers disappeared completely. If a felon was
able to reach the safety of a church, he or she might claim sanctuary
there for up to forty days before deciding what course of action to
pursue. Some felons used this time to initiate the pardoning process.
Friends and family members were often engaged to petition the king
for a pardon in the felon’s absence; although few spouse-murderers
appear to have taken advantage of the process. Alternatively, a per-
son might stay in sanctuary long enough only to make a confession
to the county coroner before abjuring the realm. In this situation,
the coroner instructed the abjurer to travel to the nearest port, never
veering from the king’s highway, and to take the first ship available
out of England. Any person who met an abjurer off the king’s high-
way was permitted to hang or arrest him, like any other convicted
felon. As was the case with flights from justice, any felon who chose
to abjure the realm probably returned later and resettled in a new
location. Some abjurers failed to leave the country at all, taking
advantage of the first unsupervised moment to lose themselves conve-
niently in the anonymity of a large urban setting. Altogether, abjura-
tion was not a popular option for people convicted of spousal homicide;
although like pardoning, it was an option. More importantly, for vic-
tims of abuse in general, abjuration might have even “provide[d] a
crude form of unilateral divorce proceeding” since the spouse of an
abjurer was legally free to remarry.62 Gervase Rosser cites a fourteenth-

61
Of course, it is essential to take into consideration the simple fact that it was
easier for men in this period to flee and make a life elsewhere than it would have
been for women. As Ruth Mazo Karras has demonstrated, working as a single-
woman in the late medieval period was not very common because there existed
numerous preconceptions about the sexuality of singlewomen. Men, who did not
encounter these same biases, must have found it much simpler to resume life as a
bachelor. See Ruth Mazo Karras, “Sex and the Singlewoman,” in Singlewomen in
the European Past, 1250–1800, ed. Judith M. Bennett and Amy M. Froide (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 127–45.
62
Gervase Rosser, “Sanctuary and social negotiation in medieval England,” in
The Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed.
John Blair and Brian Golding (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 68.
 types and frequency of abuse 95

century case in which a woman “was so desperate to get away from

her husband that she went to the church, accused herself of an invented
felony, and swore to go into exile. When, as she left, her husband
attempted to restrain her, a supporter of the woman held him back,
allowing her to make good her escape.”63 This approach to the law
of sanctuary and abjuration probably does not reflect the motives of
these spouse-murderers; however, the willingness of the court to apply
the laws governing outlawry and abjuration to spouse murderers
demonstrates that domestic homicide was not an exceptional crime.

What is Missing from the Royal Records

Two features are noticeably absent from the accounts of violent

encounters between spouses in the coroners’ and gaol delivery rolls.
First, there are no indictments or appeals for assault by a spouse,
even though a form of writ existed specifically for this purpose. The
writ required a husband “to treat and govern her [his wife] well and
honestly, and to do no injury or ill to her body other than that per-
mitted lawfully and reasonably to a husband for the purpose of con-
trol and punishment of his wife.”64 Despite the explicit recognition,
then, that a husband’s behaviour might sometimes exceed the limita-
tions of chastisement and require legal intervention, none of the
wives in this study chose to exercise this provision. This finding is
not entirely unexpected. In all of the records for both counties, there
are only two cases of assault between family members, and in both
these cases, the appealer was a man presenting against his brother.65
Given the fact that both counties together boast 1367 assaults over
the course of the later medieval period, two cases of intrafamilial
assault represent a very small percentage. The records of royal indict-
ment suggest that juries did not regard violence between family mem-
bers (especially spouses) as a matter for the king’s courts.
Second, the records of felony indictment for both Yorkshire and
Essex do not point to a high concentration of domestic homicides.
Representing fewer than three percent of all homicides for the two

63
Rosser, 68.
64
Frederick Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law before the Time
of Edward I, 2nd ed. (2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 2:436.
65
See TNA JUST 1/253, m. 2d, and TNA JUST 1/1125, m. 7.
96 chapter two

counties over the course of the later medieval period, in relative

terms spouse-murder was not a frequent occurrence. Despite the
sometimes alarming subject matter of these court records, the low
figure offers a positive assessment of the late medieval situation.
Spousal homicide as an extreme manifestation of domestic violence
was not widespread in late medieval England. Indeed, the fact that
some cases made their way into the records of the royal courts
confirms that there were limits to abuse, and that these limits were
enforced. Equally significant is the fact that out of the 10,594 cases
of violent crime recorded in the surviving record materials of the
two counties, 125 couples worked side by side to commit (or aid in)
crimes. Thus, jurors suspected married couples of carrying out little
more than one percent of violent crimes. While neither figure por-
trays an ideal couple, the latter is significant: medieval spouses were
almost half as likely to team up to assault or slay someone else as
they were to be accused of killing each other.

Conclusion

Later medieval England did not treat spousal abuse as a matter of

little significance. Both the church and the manor provided options
for community involvement in the regulation of domestic violence.
When cases of marital violence appeared in either court, both employed
a similar approach: while the two courts were determined to keep
the marriage intact, harsh penalties and fines were imposed to make
an example of the abuser and to impress upon him, or her, the
importance of a peaceable marriage. Moreover, the church courts
specifically addressed the causes of marital violence. By punishing
adultery, delinquency and disobedience, the court may have paved
the way for better marital relations between the couples in the future.
The involvement of the community in the regulation of marital
violence extended even to the extreme form of abuse: spousal homi-
cide. Accusations and judgment occurred at the hands of one’s peers.
Jurors did not often impose the penalty of death, probably because
indictment itself was the most suitable punishment. For those brought
to trial, an indictment meant public humiliation and a year or two
in prison awaiting delivery. For others, an indictment meant abjuration
of the realm, or simply flight from their home. At a time when most
people came into property through inheritance, forced exile acted as
 types and frequency of abuse 97

a punishment in itself. Despite the reluctance of trial jurors to assign

capital punishment, then, perpetrators of spousal homicide never-
theless received relatively harsh punishment. In this respect, both the
laws and conviction rates imply that English society reserved the
most severe treatment for petty traitors. Women who killed their
husbands transgressed the social and gender hierarchy; juries and
royal justices may have felt it necessary to make public examples of
petty traitors in order to impress upon other women that they would
not tolerate such behaviour. Nevertheless, husbands and wives did
not frequently resort to homicide as a solution to marital misery. In
itself, this finding suggests an optimistic re-evaluation of the medieval
community’s desire to solve problems themselves. With the abun-
dance of options available to couples and communities for the official
and unofficial resolution of violent marriages, couples may have found
the causes of marital violence eliminated before they had an oppor-
tunity to escalate to the point of homicide.
 CHAPTER THREE

CAUSES OF MARITAL TENSION

All that I may work and toil,

My wife will both drink and eat:
and if I say of it she will me beat—
careful is my heart therefore!1
The bawdy world of medieval ballads would have us believe that
termagant wives were the cause of marital strife. Unhappy to abide
by the constraints of social expectations, wives rebelled against male
rule and beat their husbands into submission. This caricature of vio-
lence exposes a contemporary belief that disobedient wives were a
major source of domestic violence. In reality, it is much more difficult
to pin down why some marriages descended into violence. It is not
hard to imagine that the courtship process of late medieval England
produced a variety of anxieties: that is, people pressed into mar-
riages too quickly soon found they did not actually like each other
enough to live together for the rest of their lives. Yet, because the
rituals of courtship were so engrained in late medieval society, defences
of this nature were not generally raised in cases of domestic violence
appearing before the courts.
Nevertheless, the records themselves do reveal some sources of
tension. An examination of ecclesiastical and royal court records
together show that late medieval society acknowledged a wide variety
of troubles leading to marital disharmony. The sordid reality reveals
that then, as now, adultery was a common cause of marital violence.
Adultery and spousal abuse often went hand-in-hand, and both the
medieval church and common law juries adopted a callous and unfor-
giving position on the matter. In particular, this chapter will explore
the records of the king’s courts together with exempla from the period,
which indicate that adultery by wives may have provided sound
justification for homicide, not only of the wives’ lovers, but perhaps
even of those wives who threatened good governance most by bear-

1
“A Henpecked Husband’s Complaint, II,” from Rossell Hope Robbins, ed.,
Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 39.
 causes of marital tension 99

ing another man’s child. Economic deprivation and insanity were

also causes of spousal abuse. In both, spouses may have vented their
aggression by turning to homicide. In cases of economic deprivation,
at the very least, the church courts held a husband responsible for
supporting his wife, even if he had deserted her. A higher principle
may have motivated the church’s determination to enforce a wife’s
support. Not only was economic deprivation thought to be a form
of abuse: it might also endanger a woman’s soul. The church inter-
vened to prevent impoverished women from turning to prostitution
to support themselves. Finally, not only popular perception, but also
the medieval church considered the disobedience of wives a wide-
spread problem. The courts may even have been prepared to hold
wives accountable for provoking abuse. Intervention by the church
was not always as positive; in fact, the church may have been a
cause of continuing marital violence. The records reveal that non-
cohabitation was the most frequent solution to spousal incompati-
bility. The response of the church in these situations was to uphold
marriage at all costs by reconciling discontented couples. This approach
may have put the church in the unhappy position of perpetuating,
rather than resolving, marital violence.

Adultery

Whether as a cause for separation or merely a symptom of matrimonial

disharmony, adultery played a large role in the dissolution of medieval
marriages. As James Brundage has noted, “[p]reachers thundered
warnings about the awful consequences of adultery, and reinforced their
admonitions with such cautionary tales as the one about a moralistic
lion who hunted down adulterers and tore them to shreds. None of
this seems to have diminished very seriously the rate at which mar-
ried folk yielded to extramarital temptations.”2 Cases of adultery
appearing in the ex officio act books of both York and Canterbury
are numerous. Together with simple fornication, adultery was one
of the most common moral offences to find its way into the church
courts of later medieval England. The ex officio records expose a

2
James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 462.
100 chapter three

‘moral underworld’ of sexual transgression, defamation, clerical mis-

conduct and general depravity.3 Sexual offences occupied by far the
vast majority of the court’s time. For example, in a statistical analy-
sis of one act book covering the period 1387 to 1484, J.S. Purvis
counted a total of 3640 charges, of which 3236 (89 percent) were
cases of fornication, adultery or similar moral offences.4 In the sheer
range and quantity of cases presented, the courts revealed their will-
ingness to intrude heavy-handedly in the daily lives of Englishmen
and women. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the high rate of
incidents of adultery affected marital discord.
What is perhaps most surprising is that the medieval church recog-
nised the intimate connection between adultery and spousal abuse,
going so far as to blame some cases of marital strife on adultery. For
example, in 1404, just four years after the court of the Dean and
Chapter summoned Thomas Tebbe of Driffield to respond to allega-
tions of spousal mistreatment, he found himself before the court once
again, presented for a variety of moral crimes. When he first made the
decision to engage in sexual intercourse with Joan, servant of Peter
Tebbe, Thomas probably believed his extramarital activities would
remain a secret between the two. In a small village where gossip ran
rampant, such a choice titbit must have been enticing for local gos-
sipmongers. The ensuing scandal caused by his flagrant adultery had
disastrous effects on his marriage and was reported to be the source
of discord between Thomas and his wife. As a result, the record
notes, “Thomas maltreats his wife”; he was compelled to answer to
the court for both his adultery and the abuse.5
The case of Thomas Tebbe is just one instance in which the courts
placed the blame for marital breakdown on the adulterous activities
of a particular spouse. In the case of a late fourteenth-century York-
shire miller named William of Sledmere and his wife Hawis Martyne,
the “diverse squabbles and discord between the two” were reported
as a direct result of the husband’s adultery. The court’s final judge-

3
L.R. Poos, “The Heavy-Handed Marriage Counselor: Regulating Marriage in
Some Later-Medieval English Local Ecclesiastical Court Jurisdictions,” American Journal
of Legal History 29 (1995): 291.
4
J.S. Purvis, ed., A Mediaeval Act Book with some account of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction at
York (York, 1943), 4. The object of investigation in this study is a court book of the
peculiar jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of York usually referred to as D & C
AB/1.
5
York D & C AB/1, fo. 33.
 causes of marital tension 101

ment took into account William’s betrayal of the trust implicit in the
marital relationship. While Hawis and William were required to make
peace, the court released Hawis from her obligation to render the
conjugal debt.6 This was a standard judicial response to allegations
of adultery. As the applications for separation of Margery de Devoine
(1349) and Agnes Huntington (1345–6), both of York, discussed
below, demonstrate, the past adulteries of litigants directly influenced
the legal course of the dissolution of the marriage.7 The church pro-
hibited a convicted adulterer from pleading a suit for divorce a mensa
et thoro on the grounds of adultery. The English church considered
adultery a suitably grievous sin that it wholly transformed the nature
of the marital relationship. As a result, both halves of the conjugal
union no longer retained equivalent rights within marriage. Equal
access to the conjugal debt by both marital partners broke down
barriers in the gender hierarchy;8 unequal access, then, challenged
the source of a genuine bond of affection between the two. Andrew
Finch similarly argues that marital affection, as it was employed in
courtroom terminology, was merely a “euphemism for sexual inter-
course,” showing that the courts believed sexual intercourse and affec-
tion within marriage were deeply intertwined.9 To eliminate equality
in this aspect would have created emotional and psychological bar-
riers between the two that may have condemned the marriage to a
lifetime of distrust and unhappiness. Here, it must be underscored
that equal access to the conjugal debt did not elevate a woman’s
authoritative role in the marriage; as Dyan Elliott’s study of chaste
marriages in the later Middle Ages demonstrates, the husband’s
authority remained intact, regardless of their sexual relationship. A
wife who had made vows of chastity might even be expected to
break them if her husband demanded it of her; the husband played
the role of “God’s vicar: God preferred female obedience to her hus-
band over the fulfillment of sworn acts of devotion.”10

6
York M 2(1) c, fo. 29.
7
See discussion of the “clean-hands rule” in Chapter Four.
8
See James A. Brundage, “Sexual equality in medieval canon law,” in Medieval
Women and the Sources of Medieval History, ed. Joel Rosenthal (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1990), 66–79.
9
Andrew Finch, “Repulsa uxore sua: Marital difficulties and separation in the later
middle ages,” Continuity and Change 8 (1993): 21.
10
Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1993), 165.
102 chapter three

Victims of abuse also sometimes reported a correlation between

adultery and their husbands’ violent conduct. A case from the diocese
of London in 1488 makes this explicit. After being beaten by her
husband, Agnes Badcok presented herself at the home of her husband’s
mistress, declaring publicly “[a] vengeance on the whore, Joan Essex,
this [bruise?] have I for thy sake, thou art my husband’s whore and
this have I for thy sake.” Joan’s situation may also have been com-
plicated by the existence of an illegitimate child. According to another
witness, John Smert, Agnes compounded the injury by adding a fur-
ther accusation: “Will ye see, yonder sits a whore, this same is my
husband’s child.”11 Joan’s suit of defamation against Agnes for her
accusations suggests that she also considered this a serious matter.
Medieval commentators on marriage feared that adultery might
lead some spouses to homicide. As a result, the church included the
impediment of crime among its numerous and variegated obstacles to
marriage. The conditions of this impediment stipulated that a man
might not legitimise an illicit union through marriage if he was impli-
cated in the death of his wife, and he had sworn to marry his mis-
tress during his wife’s lifetime. This rule also held true in the reverse.
Canonists were well aware that the laity might consider the perma-
nence of marriage inconvenient, and they wished to discourage spousal
elimination as a ready solution for a man or woman torn between
a spouse and a lover.12
Although only rarely, the royal records verify that adultery did
sometimes lead medieval spouses into crime. There are only two
extant cases from the king’s records, both from Essex, in which jurors
accused a person of conspiring with a lover to do away with a spouse.
The first is a straightforward account. It states that, in the year 1285
“Robert de la Walle [of Essex] slew Avice his wife in the vill of
Ardlea. . . . [and] that the said Robert went [to stay] with his con-
cubine, namely Mabel daughter of Thomas the Carpenter. And that
the said Mabel and the said Robert have fled.”13 Unfortunately, in

11
GL MS 9065, fo. 44v, Joan Essex c. Agnes Badcok.
12
Richard Helmholz includes a more lengthy discussion of this impediment in
his Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1974), 94–8. The impediment of crime was seldom brought forward as a reason
for annulment in the medieval English courts. Helmholz is able to identify only
three cases in which annulment on these grounds was proposed, yet there is no
evidence that the courts granted an annulment in any of the three.
13
TNA JUST 1/242, m. 98.
 causes of marital tension 103

the absence of a verdict and with such a spare record, this case fails
to reveal the jurors’ opinions of lovers working together to do away
with a spouse. In the case of Ebote, wife of John Ireland, however,
the documentation is much more informative. An inquest jury from
the county of Essex in the year 1358 accused her of knowingly aid-
ing and procuring the death of her husband in the village of Barking
earlier that year. According to the jury, William Copyn of Barking
met Ireland in the street and viciously assaulted him with a staff.
Once he had John pinned defenceless on the ground, William pulled
out his knife and feloniously stabbed his victim to death. The indict-
ment makes explicit the nature of the association between Ebote and
William. William was said to have known Ebote carnally, indicating
that the two were indeed lovers. As contemporary attitudes towards
adultery might suggest, the jury punished the couple harshly for its
crimes: William was hanged, and Ebote was burned at the stake.14
More common was the situation in which a husband became aware
of his wife’s infidelity and took his revenge. As a case from the York-
shire gaol delivery rolls of 1358 implies, juries sometimes acquitted
jealous husbands accused of killing their wives’ lovers. The record notes
that William de Silver of Sutton had a sexual relationship with the
wife of Robert Grainson of Setcotes. It goes on to state that the same
William entered the home of Robert one night with malice afore-
thought. He saw Robert’s son, a child also named Robert, sitting
by the fire, and proceeded to beat him with a wooden staff. Seeing that
his son’s life was in danger, Robert brandished a knife and stabbed
William to death. In court, he pleaded not guilty on the grounds of
self-defence and was acquitted of the charges.15 It is hard to imagine
that this story accurately represents the events of the homicide. The
entry begins with the statement that William slept (concubivit) with
Robert’s wife. This remark is thoroughly unconnected to the rest of
the account, but was somehow relevant enough to the homicide to
justify its inclusion in the record. Furthermore, the indictment pro-
vides no context for the beating of Robert’s son. While it is possi-
ble that William merely walked into the room and began beating
the child, as the record states, it seems likely that some sort of an
argument preceded these actions. It is also possible the beating did

14
TNA JUST 3/18, m. 7/1; a fuller account of the record appears in TNA
JUST 3/18, m. 8/1.
15
TNA JUST 3/141a m. 38d.
104 chapter three

not occur at all: the abuse of the child was merely fictionalised con-
text by which to exonerate the homicide, transforming Robert into
an overly protective father. In the same way, the affair was included
in the account to clarify Robert’s response and, in turn, to justify
his actions. Quite simply, Robert was defending his family.
Medieval juries were notorious for fabricating judgements of self-
defence out of narratives of culpable homicide where they believed
a death was excusable even if it did not meet the parameters of con-
temporary legal requirements.16 Nowhere is the jury’s manipulation
of the self-defence plea more evident than in cases of the slaying of
an adulterer, although, there were set rules to the game. “An aggrieved
husband was not permitted to take the adulterer’s life, but, as in the
case of a trespasser upon his land, he would have been able to drive
him away.”17 Homicide was justifiable only when all else failed and
the master of the house suddenly found his own life endangered.
The degree to which the jury framed its verdict in order to create
this illusion was, at times, significant. The case of Robert of Laghscale
(Yorks.) presents the clearest example of jury manipulation to sanc-
tion the killing of a wife’s lover. The coroner’s roll records a straight-
forward case of homicide. Robert returned unexpectedly from working
in the fields one afternoon to find his wife in bed with John Doughty.
The discovery so enraged him that he struck John in the head with
an axe, immediately killing him.18 As the indictment suggests, this was
an unambiguous case of culpable homicide. Its members may have
believed that Robert’s rage was justifiable, but he was nevertheless
responsible for his actions. The petty jury assigned to Robert’s case,
however, saw things in a different light. The gaol delivery account
includes a much-reshaped version of the events, intended to emphasise
John’s trespass in Robert’s home and to paint Robert as the victim.
John Doughty came at night to the house of Robert in the village of
Laghscale as Robert and his wife lay asleep in bed in the peace of the
King, and he entered Robert’s house; seeing this, Robert’s wife secretly
arose from her husband and went to John and John went to bed with
Robert’s wife; in the meantime Robert awakened and hearing noise
in his house and seeing that his wife had left his bed rose and sought

16
See Thomas A. Green, Verdict According to Conscience: Perspectives on the English
Criminal Trial Jury 1200–1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 28–64.
17
Green, 42.
18
TNA JUST 2/211, m. 1d/1.
 causes of marital tension 105

her in his house and found her with John; immediately John attacked
Robert with a knife . . . and wounded him and stood between him and
the door of Robert’s house continually stabbing and wounding him and
Robert seeing that his life was in danger and that he could in no way
flee further, in order to save his life he took up a hatchet and gave John
one blow in the head.19
The jury’s reworking of the setting to place Robert in bed asleep in
the dark of night was a substantial modification of the narrative,
intended to accentuate the heinous nature of John’s trespass. John had
not only intruded into Robert’s home without consent, he was, in
effect, usurping Robert’s role as master of the house by sleeping with
his wife. If Robert had been forced to kill a man of this low moral
fibre in order to save his own skin, the jury’s account makes it clear
that it was no great loss to the village of Laghscale. Robert was par-
doned for his crime.
The jury’s decision to alter even the hour of the crime in this
instance, doubtless an attempt to heighten the deceitful and villainous
nature of the crime, expresses just how gross a sin jurors considered
female adultery to be. In this respect, it is important to remember
that women were barred from participating in medieval juries. Instead,
juries were composed of men from the middling to upper ranks of
English society. It is not difficult to imagine that men of this rank
and position, eager to uphold the moral standing of their village
community, would have condoned the slaying of an adulterer as a
necessary evil.20
The petty jury’s reluctance to apply common law penalties in cases
of revenge killings on lovers is reflected in the tendency of trial juries
at gaol delivery to transform cases of deliberate homicide into self-
defence. This tactic was not exclusive to homicides involving adultery;
medieval trial juries frequently employed this strategy in cases where
popular perceptions of culpable homicide were at odds with the
requirements of royal law.21 Because the common law requirements
for self-defence were rigid and exacting, stipulating that homicide

19
TNA JUST 3/78, m. 2d/1. This case is also discussed by Green, 42–3.
20
Certainly in other places in medieval Europe, the slaying of a wife’s lover (and
sometimes even the wife) was standard practice. See Eva Cantarella, “Homicides
of Honor: The Development of Italian Adultery Law over Two Millennia,” in The
Family in Italy: From Antiquity to the Present, ed. David I. Kertzer and Richard P. Saller
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 229–244.
21
Green, 41.
106 chapter three

must be a last resort when retreat was no longer possible and death
was near at hand, the tales told in the records often appear almost
ludicrous.22
Jurors may have believed that God, or at least the English church,
also sanctioned the slaying of a wife’s lover. The exemplum of “A
Roper’s False Wife” helps to clarify the church’s perspective on adul-
terous wives. When a “deceitful bawd” approached the roper’s wife
and convinced her to sleep with a libidinous prior in return for gifts
and jewellery, the wife agreed to the plan and invited the prior to
come lie with her. After several close encounters, the husband began
to suspect his wife’s fidelity and ordered her not to return to the
priory. He then went into town, arranged to hire a surgeon capable
of healing two broken legs and returned to his home where he “took
a pestle and broke both his wife’s legs and said to her, ‘At the very
least, for a while, you will not go far and disobey my orders’.” Her
injuries did not put an end to the wife’s wantonness. He awoke that
night to see his wife and the prior next to him in bed in flagrante;
without a word, the husband grabbed his knife and “pierced them
both through, fixing them to the bed.” The exemplum closes with the
hearty congratulations of his neighbours and town officials, “the which,
they all said with one voice, was a proper way to punish them.”23
“A Roper’s False Wife” is a very graphic morality tale emphasis-
ing the dangerous consequences of betraying the marriage bond. The
most striking aspect of this tale is not the murder of the wife and
her lover in such a horrific manner, but rather the village’s whole-

22
Green makes a very valid point in this respect. He notes, “given the nature of
medieval life, the rules of both self-defense and felonious homicide were unrealistically
strict. If firmly applied, they would have meant the condemnation of persons of pride
who, when under attack, did not turn tail and flee until cornered beyond all hope of
further escape.” (Green, 46). In a society where war and chivalry were glorified as
noble causes, the common law was out of step with national ethics. This finding helps
modern historians to understand why jury tampering was tolerated. Royal justices
probably shared many of the same values as their jurors, and did not wish to penalise
persons who committed homicide in contravention of the law, especially when they
might have chosen the same course of action if the positions had been reversed.
23
Joan Young Gregg, ed., Devils, Women, and Jews: Reflections of the Other in Medieval
Sermon Stories (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 127–30. This orig-
inally appeared in Thomas Wright, ed., The Book of the Knight of Tour Landry (Early
English Text Society, Old Ser. v. 33, 1906), 79–82. Landry’s text was very well
known in England and thus it can be assumed that this particular exemplum would
have been among the stock sermon stories recounted to the English laity in the
later Middle Ages.
 causes of marital tension 107

hearted support of the crime. If the intention of this exemplum were

only to explain that sinners receive their just deserts, then would it
not have made more sense for God to strike the wife down in a way
that did not seemingly justify homicide? A sudden illness or even an
unexpected bath in boiling water, Marie de France’s chosen punishment
for adulterers in “Equitan,” might have communicated the same mes-
sage without condoning murder. The fact that the husband’s deba-
cle was resolved with such brutality and that the fictional community
met this punishment with resounding approval indicates that this was
not the only message intended to reach parishioners. “A Roper’s
False Wife” was but one of a number of exempla that helped to
confirm traditional beliefs by reflecting communal values in the teach-
ings of the church. Sermon stories such as these argue that the
church’s perspective on spousal abuse was dualistic: the official posi-
tion did not necessarily accord with beliefs held within the parish.
Taken together, the records of both the ecclesiastical and royal
courts confirm that adultery was linked frequently to spousal vio-
lence and homicide. Moreover, respectable people interpreted adul-
tery along gendered lines: while adultery was always thought to be
an offensive and sinful act, a wife’s adultery may have furnished a
husband with free license for retribution.

Economic Deprivation

Economic deprivation was another source of friction that led repeat-

edly to abuse. As Mavis Mate has argued, within marriage, a wife
had few individual property rights.
A husband, as head of the household, controlled all the material resources
of the family, including any goods that a wife may have brought to the
marriage and any money that she earned through her labour or from
the sale of goods that she produced. If a husband wasted in drink or
gambling what a wife had earned, she had no recourse in law.24
The inequity of this situation and the dangers to which it could lead
was not lost on contemporary preachers. In his popular collection
of Latin sermons from the thirteenth century, the Dominican Friar

24
Mavis E. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 34.
108 chapter three

Peregrinus draws clear links between physical and financial cruelty.

He wrote: “I fear . . . that there are many . . . who give their wives
absolutely no freedom, instead excluding them from everything so
that they cannot give their children even the basic necessities, and
often they do not even have enough to be able to pay for a bath.”25
Peregrinus’s denunciation of tight-fisted husbands who paved the way
for marital misery by depriving their wives of basic domestic needs
is both perceptive and appropriate. Although husbands had a moral
obligation to support their wives, the church recognised that marriage
made a woman reliant on her husband’s sense of decency and hon-
our. Even though money and property were not formally within the
purview of their jurisdiction, the representatives of the church took
it upon themselves to remedy this situation. What Peregrinus con-
demned in his sermons, the ecclesiastical courts actively pursued in
medieval society. Women abandoned by their husbands and lacking
any financial resources turned to the church for assistance.26 Married
men who disregarded the needs of their wives and families exceeded
the authority granted to them by the sacrament of marriage.27
In the event of financially irresponsible husbands, canon law pro-
vided wives with the option of suing their husbands for restitution
of their dowries.28 The records of the English courts, however, include
no evidence to suggest that this theoretical right was ever put into
practice. Nonetheless, the English church reflects Peregrinus’s deter-
mination to force delinquent husbands into living up to social expec-
tations concerning the support of their wives, whether they shared
a residence or not. In a letter to an archdeacon’s official dated June
of the year 1286, archbishop of York John Le Romeyn ordered
William of Beltoft to treat his wife with marital affection as owed
to her by the state of matrimony. The letter states that William
caused a scandal because of his poor conduct. He not only “mal-

25
As cited in Rüdiger Schnell, “The Discourse on Marriage in the Middle Ages,”
Speculum 73 (1998): 773.
26
Sara M. Butler, “Maintenance Agreements and Male Responsibility in Later
Medieval England,” in Gender, Jurisdiction and Geography: The Boundaries of the Law in
Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. A.J. Musson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 67–83.
27
James Brundage notes that “[c]anonists and civilians alike held that husbands
incurred a continuing obligation to maintain their wives, not only during marriage,
but also after its termination.” Consequently, the courts were willing to order the
payment of alimony, however, as Brundage observes, the payments were often triv-
ial in nature. See Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, 479–80.
28
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 542.
 causes of marital tension 109

treated his wife,” a euphemism for physical violence, but also deprived
her of nourishment. Le Romeyn ordered the official to force William
into reform through ecclesiastical censure.29 Similarly, in a mandate
from August of the same year, the archbishop demanded that Sir
Michael of Upsall, who also maltreated his wife and withheld neces-
sities from her, treat his wife with marital affection.30 It seems probable
that both mandates appeared in response to complaints from either
the women involved, or family and friends outraged at the treat-
ment of these respectable women. The high social standing of their
husbands emphasised the contemptible nature of the offence. To
deprive one’s wife of the necessities of life would not have been com-
mendable behaviour under any circumstances; for a man of this
rank, who could well afford to offer his wife luxuries, this behaviour
was not only reprehensible, but also scandalous.
The medieval church addressed economic deprivation even out-
side the upper ranks of medieval society. An act book for the
Canterbury Dean and Chapter notes that when Thomas Waralynton
was presented in 1373, the court required him to swear an oath to
treat his wife Maud Trippes with marital affection in mensa et thoro,
and to provide her with necessities in food and other materials,
according to his ability.31 Thomas seems to have effected his own
informal separation, abandoning his wife to her own resources. The
court intervened on her behalf before circumstances forced her to
resort to begging. The willingness of the Dean and Chapter to step
in suggests that the English church acknowledged a husband’s duty
to provide for his wife and, at times, compelled delinquent husbands
to carry out this obligation.
The English church may even have perceived economic deprivation
of a wife as a particularly sinful form of domestic violence. In a man-
date to the dean of Shoreham in 1297, the archbishop of Canterbury
takes Walter de la Mare to task for having deserted his wife and
the mother of his many children four years earlier and refusing to
provide her with maintenance. The archbishop notes that Walter
not only deprived her of the conjugal debt, but he also inhumanely
refused to render to her the necessities of life out of her dowry and

29
William Brown, ed., The Register of John Le Romeyn, Lord Archbishop of York, 1286–
1296 (2 parts, Surtees Society, v. 123, 1913), 1. nos. 718, 250.
30
Brown, Register of John Le Romeyn, 1. nos. 545, 191.
31
Canterbury Y.1.1, fo. 28v.
110 chapter three

other common goods of theirs “in contempt of his salvation and the
scandal of many, since great danger to souls is transferred because
of these things.”32 This is not the only account in which failure to
provide for one’s wife was painted in this unholy light. The register
of Thomas of Corbridge, archbishop of York from 1300–1304, con-
tains a mandate to the official of the provost of Beverley on behalf
of Alice, wife of Ellis son of James of Lockington. The mandate
states that Alice, “for whom we are compassionate,” maintains she
was prepared to be obedient to her husband in all matters, accord-
ing to the law of marriage, but “without reasonable cause,” Ellis
banished her from their home. Also, he does not treat her with mar-
ital affection; and what is more “inhumane,” he has deprived her
of the necessities of life and other things, “contrary to the teachings
of the church and putting her soul in jeopardy.” Accordingly, the
archbishop commanded his representative to summon both parties
before the court where they should be compelled to conduct them-
selves as befits husband and wife, noting that this applies especially
to the man who, as it is understood, is rebellious against God and
the church.33
The letters concerning Walter de la Mare and Ellis of Lockington
speak volumes to contemporary perceptions of wife maintenance. A
husband who did not live up to his marital duties, chiefly when he
was capable of doing so, was considered a serious offender. Moreover,
the use of the term “inhumane” to describe this treatment indicates
that the courts may have adopted an expanded definition of abuse, and
likewise considered financial deprivation to be a form of abuse. With-
out economic support, a woman’s soul was thought to be in danger,

32
Rose Graham, ed., Registrum Roberti Winchelsey Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, 1294–1313
(Canterbury and York Series, v. 51, 1952), 194–5.
33
William Brown, ed., The Register of Thomas of Corbridge, Lord Archbishop of York,
1300 –1304 (2 parts, Surtees Society, v. 141, 1928), 2.44–45. Records from the dio-
cese of London suggest that the use of the term inhumaniter may have been a stock
phrase used in cases of domestic violence, or at the very least, plaintiffs employed
this phrase on a number of occasions to describe situations of violence in marriage.
For example, one witness in the divorce a mensa et thoro case between William
Hyndeley and his wife Joan described a particularly savage beating that left Joan
in the hands of a Franciscan monk for healing as having been committed inhu-
maniter (LMA MS DL/C/205, fo. 289r, Joan Hyndeley c. William Hyndeley, 1475).
When William Badner beat his wife with swords so badly that her life was thought
to be in peril, he was also described as having treated her inhumaniter (GL MS
9064/6, fo. 86r, 1494).
 causes of marital tension 111

indicating that the courts understood a woman in dire financial straits

might be tempted to trade sexual favours for food and shelter.
A case from the register of the archbishop of York emphasizes
the church’s determination to make husbands responsible for main-
taining their wives. In 1300, Henry Leue of Walkeringham was
warned to treat his wife with marital affection and to provide her
with necessities. Beyond these basic requirements, he was ordered to
pay his wife five shillings annually for her support, even though this
was not a case of separation and the court intended that he reside
with her.34 Why ask a man to pay alimony to his wife if he were
not separated? A probable answer is that Henry Leue was a repeat
offender and the court no longer had the confidence that he would
support his wife as requested. A fixed payment, documented and
enforceable in court, was an easy alternative to constant supervision
and frequent citations. An annual payment of alimony assured the
representatives of the church that they would see him in court no
more than once a year. A drastic solution of this nature reveals the
court’s willingness to put wives in charge of their own maintenance
when forced to deal with irresponsible husbands.
Economic deprivation may have led some wives to desperate actions.
The archbishop of York’s register notes how, in the year 1290, Dame
Christian Meynell, wife of Sir Nicholas de Meynell, was rumoured
to have made an attempt on her husband’s life. Her redemption lay
in the fact that her husband survived. Nicolas de Meynell was the
complainant in the matter. According to the account, the charges
against her were manifold. “It is said that she engineered the plot
to kill her husband, to poison him, having prepared a measure of
venom, and she committed adultery with the clerics W. de Grenefeud
and Walter de Hamerton.”35 Over the course of the investigation,
the archbishop’s court cleared Dame Christian of all charges. The
court’s decision to sentence in favour of Dame Christian and to pro-
claim her innocence publicly might be best explained by her choice
of lovers. The William de Grenefeud to whom the commission refers
was not only a respected and accomplished clergyman, but also the
future archbishop of York.36 With such a powerful man on her side,

34
Brown, Register of Thomas of Corbridge, 1. 201.
35
Brown, Register of John Le Romeyn, 1. nos. 481, 170.
36
The editor of the volume, William Brown, is responsible for making this con-
nection. See Brown, Register of John Le Romeyn, 1.170n.
112 chapter three

it probably did not matter whether the allegations were fact or

fiction.37
A letter written to the king by the archbishop two years after the
fact shows that Sir Nicholas had good reason to suspect that his wife
wished to see him dead.
To the lord king. We have recently received a letter of your highness
containing [the following]: that because the wife of Sir Nicholas de
Meynell, it is said, has withdrawn from him against his will, putting
distance between herself and him and leading a sinful and also dishonest
life, refusing to adhere to him, at the great and serious cost of the said
Nicholas, we wish to offer a suitable remedy. Accordingly, it is brought
to the attention of your lordship, after examination of the said Nicholas
and his wife by the usual procedures in the ecclesiastical court, we find
that Nicholas in violent fashion threw his wife out of her home in con-
travention of the law governing married people and thereafter neglected
to support her against the church’s ruling, which ruling was intended to
secure her an honest manner of living and [adequate] sustenance. More
particularly [it was found that] the fault [here] lies with the husband,
who inflicted bodily harm on this blameless woman. Given this cruelty
and the fragility of the woman, it is not advised to return to the control
of the man without requiring of him suitable warranty that he will treat
her in future with marital affection, as appropriate; yet it was frequently
and publicly sworn that, in contravention of ecclesiastical law, the hus-
band refused to undertake such a pledge. Therefore do not be sur-
prised, your lordship, if as a result of this injury and with the agreement
of the community in which she now resides, the church has pity on
this oppressed woman.38
The solution to which the archbishop refers was almost certainly a
separation from table and bed with a court approved maintenance
agreement. Such a solution, necessitating a division of property among
one of the king’s tenants-in-chief, however, would have required the
archbishop to contact the king for approval. Sir Nicholas’s position
demanded royal authorisation in order to make any exchange of
property lawful. Otherwise, he was legally warranted to disregard the

37
Sir Nicholas’s complaint may represent a sincere accusation from a man happy
to have survived. However, there are reasons to suspect “fiction in the archives.”
His decision to compound the accusations against his wife may represent an attempt
to lay the groundwork for a divorce a mensa et thoro. If the investigation into the
charges had substantiated his claims, Sir Nicholas would have had all the neces-
sary proof to obtain a separation.
38
Brown, Register of John Le Romeyn, nos. 96, 76–77.
 causes of marital tension 113

archiepiscopal decree. He could even sue a case in the royal courts

against his wife’s guardian on the grounds of unlawful ejection, and
if her adulterous past were verifiable, a common law court would
permit his executor to reject her claims to dower after his death. In
order to guarantee Dame Christian’s future economic and spiritual
well being, the archbishop needed to co-ordinate his efforts with the
king. In the event that Nicholas once more refused to obey the
decrees of the court, the church might summon officers of the king.
This is the last missive written on behalf of Dame Christian de
Meynell to survive amid the records of the archbishop’s register; thus,
it is unknown whether Le Romeyn’s pleas were well received. None
the less, her case brings together much of the prevailing beliefs found
in both the ecclesiastical act books and the archiepiscopal registers
concerning the duty of the husband to support his wife. More impor-
tant still, the letter permits a glimpse into the mind of a high-ranking
ecclesiastical official in order to understand his personal opinion of
what constituted excessive abuse. Le Romeyn’s perspective, expressed
so eloquently and passionately on behalf of Dame Christian, is vital
to a more complete understanding of the attitude and approach
adopted by the representatives of the medieval English church, and
thus deserves a more profound examination.
The details of the physical abuse were not what interested the
archbishop most. The forced eviction from the home, Dame Christian’s
terror at returning to her husband’s lordship, and the spiritual rami-
fications of Sir Nicholas’s refusal to provide financial support seem
to have been the three fundamental elements of Le Romeyn’s under-
standing of abuse. From the archbishop’s perspective, Sir Nicholas
was entirely to blame. He maintained that Dame Christian withdrew
from her home “unwillingly,” even though her home environment was
not a happy one, her husband was admittedly cruel and she later
demonstrated reluctance to return. Consciously or not, Le Romeyn
painted Dame Christian as an ideal victim. He referred to her alter-
nately as both “blameless” and a “fragile woman.” She was the pas-
sive woman who dared not return home. She was also constantly acted
upon: she was expelled from her home; bodily harm was inflicted
upon her. Most seriously, if her reputation was marred with sin,
then once again her husband must shoulder the responsibility. Without
the support of a husband, all too easily a woman might turn to a
life of dishonesty. In this cleric’s mind, a much sinned against wife
was the victim of abuse.
114 chapter three

Economic deprivation was both a source of tension leading to

marital disharmony and a form of abuse. A man’s responsibility for
his wife’s soul, safeguarding her from resorting to prostitution as a
means of support, was a heavy burden; a man who failed to live up
to these expectations was not only a disappointment as a husband,
but a wife-abuser. His actions may not have left tangible evidence
on the body of the victim; but a man might scar a woman’s soul
permanently by deserting her.

Insanity

In the medieval courts, insanity very rarely cropped up as an expla-

nation for spousal violence; a fact in itself that attests, in the Middle
Ages, one did not have to be mad to beat one’s wife. When a defen-
dant did plead insanity, however, the intent was to excuse his or her
actions. Where felony was concerned, medieval common law was
explicit in cases of insanity. The mid-thirteenth century treatise attrib-
uted to Bracton argued that a crime is not committed unless the
will to harm is present. Thus, those suffering from lunacy were inno-
cent of intent and not responsible for their actions, even in cases of
homicide or treason.39 In this respect, then, insanity should have been
the perfect explanation for a defence of spousal homicide; and yet,
manipulation of insanity pleas was not that easy. Pleas of this nature
were hard to maintain without solid proof. Jurors demanded concrete
evidence. The safest defence was to assert that after committing the
crime the accused had also attempted to take his or her own life.40
In cases of spousal homicide, when a defendant denied account-
ability on the grounds of insanity, trial juries appeared sceptical. This
attitude was particularly evident in cases of temporary insanity. Faced
with an exceedingly sober and lucid wife-killer, trial jurors may have
believed that a defence of insanity was not sustainable. The 1313
case of Richard Sharp of Maltby (Yorks.) reflects the problematic
nature of temporary insanity pleas. According to the presenting jury,

39
Henry de Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. George Woodbine,
trans. S.E. Thorne (4 vols, Cambridge: Belknap Press at Harvard University Press,
1968), 2.424.
40
Naomi D. Hurnard, The King’s Pardon for Homicide Before A.D. 1307 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1969), 165–6.
 causes of marital tension 115

for four years before the death of the said Agnes, Richard has been
of unsound mind on occasion, sometimes for a quarter of a year, some-
times for longer. On that day, he was in such a state and lacking and
deprived of his senses, he came one morning to Maltby and entered
a house where his wife Agnes was staying. He carried with him an axe
and in a rage struck her on the head and wounded her so that she died
immediately. They say that for two months before the said deed, during
the deed and for a month after it he remained non compos mentis. They
say that he was in that state when he killed Agnes, and that she did
not die as a result of felony or malice aforethought. Richard is there-
fore remitted to gaol, to await the king’s grace, and nevertheless he
has not fled.41
The record implies that, before her death, Agnes was no longer liv-
ing with her husband. Bearing this in mind, an imaginative jury
might have interpreted Richard’s actions as the last episode in an
ongoing marital spat. Thus, it was in Richard’s best interest for the
presenting jury to record clearly that his actions were not premed-
itated, and that Agnes deserted her husband because of his unstable
mental state. This point is significant on its own. While this statement
cannot speak to the church’s position on marital cohabitation, at the
very least it implies that the English laity did not always expect a
woman to continue living with her husband under such conditions.
The presenting jury in Richard’s case was at pains to demonstrate
that his actions were those of a man afflicted with mental insanity,
despite his otherwise sane appearance at his trial. Their efforts were
rewarded: an entry in the Calendar of Patent Rolls notes that Richard
received a pardon for his crime,42 although the record of his indict-
ment shows that this was no easy feat. In fact, jurors seem to have
frequently empathized with mad spouse-killers, remitting them to
gaol to await the king’s mercy. For example, a Leicestershire coroner’s
roll recounts the story of John Jugg of Garthorpe the younger from
the year 1382. Through diabolical temptation, John was led to stab
his wife Hawis with a knife in the chest, so that she died five days
later. During the time that the act occurred and for two days before
and after, John was furious and out of his mind. The roll notes that

41
TNA JUST 3/74, m. 3/14.
42
CPR 1307–13, 431. The entry notes that a pardon was granted to Richard
Sharpe of Maltby for the death of Agnes his wife as it appears by the record of
John of Insula and the other justices of gaol delivery for York that he was mad
when he killed her. The date is given as 16 February 1312.
116 chapter three

John was remanded to the king’s gaol at Leicester, presumably to

await pardon from the king.43
Men were not the only ones capable of defending their actions
with an insanity plea. A late thirteenth-century Yorkshire coroner’s
roll notes the case of Maud, wife of Hugh of Wray, who slew her
husband while he was sleeping. However, the record gives no indi-
cation of the court’s handling in this matter because the defendant
died before the case could come to trial.44 A Lincolnshire coroner’s
roll that records the death of Thomas son of William Sherman at
the hands of his wife, Isabel, suffering from frenzy, also fails to note
the outcome of the case.45 Without sentences, it is difficult to know
if the king’s mercy applied differently according to the gender of the
accused. There are meagre signs that men may have been required
to defend their actions more stringently. Suicide verdicts, which are
more likely to include allegations of insanity, demonstrate a pre-
dominance of non compos mentis verdicts among female victims.46 Given
contemporary perspectives on the weakness of the female mind and
feminine susceptibility to the temptation of the devil, the courts may
have seen fit to excuse insanity in women more easily than in men.
With such a paucity of cases, however, it is impractical to make this
assertion with any confidence.47
Together, the cases suggest that if insanity was not a cause of
spousal homicide, defendants and jurors may have used it to excuse
their behaviour. A plea of this nature would not have made it into
the records if the respectable local people did not vigorously con-
sent that it was applicable.

Disobedient Wives

As Ruth Mazo Karras has noted, “[t]he disobedience of women in

general, and of wives specifically, was one of the most popular lines

43
TNA JUST 2/57, m. 12.
44
TNA JUST 1/1078, m. 81.
45
TNA JUST 2/69, m. 7d
46
Sara M. Butler, “Women, Suicide, and the Jury in Later Medieval England.”
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32.1 (2006): 141–66.
47
The attitude of jurors towards homicidal insanity is the subject of a current
investigation by this author.
 causes of marital tension 117

of antifeminist argument in the Middle Ages; as embodied in Eve,

this vice was responsible for the fall of mankind.”48 This popular
theme was not restricted to fictional literature like the Flood play;
rather, its popularity was such that one of the more influential French
exemplists, Étienne de Bourbon, devoted an entire section of his
work to the shrewishness and disobedience of wives.49 This fear per-
meated much of medieval society. The records reveal that men fre-
quently justified their violent actions with the scolding tongues of
their wives. For example, a case from the Rochester consistory court
in December of 1347 recounts the tale of a Kentish couple, Henry
Cook of Hethe at Trottiscliffe and his wife. When brought before
the court on charges of spousal non-cohabitation, Henry argued that
the fault was entirely his wife’s because she was a scold. His spouse
countered the argument with a more traditional defence, asserting
allegations of sexual infidelity and physical cruelty. Neither spouse
was able to present a convincing argument for separation; the court
ordered them to be reconciled.50 While Henry failed to persuade the
court of the validity of his case, his resort to scolding as a justification
for divorce is significant. At the very least, this one man thought
scolding was such an egregious behaviour that an ecclesiastical official
from the period might sympathise with a scold’s husband. Henry’s
justification is symptomatic of a more widespread belief.
This view is supported by a number of cases of divorce a mensa
et thoro from late medieval England. The standard defence turned
the wife into a scapegoat, by arguing that she provoked him with
disrespectful language. Such was the defence of William Hyndeley
of London in 1475 who alleged that his wife used “opprobrious,
contentious, scolding and vexatious words,” moving him to strike
her.51 Richard Styward of London in 1488 also defended his violent

48
Ruth Mazo Karras, “Gendered Sin and Misogyny in John of Bromyard’s Summa
Predicantium,” Traditio 47 (1992): 252.
49
Étienne de Bourbon, Anecdotes historiques, légendes, et apologues tirés du recueil inédit
d’Étienne de Bourbon, ed. A. Lecoy de la Marche (Paris: Librairie Renouard, H. Loones,
1877), 201–10. He was not alone. See also Jenny Swanson, John of Wales: A Study
of the Works and Ideas of a Thirteenth-Century Friar (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 114–18, 124–26; and for examples in sermons see G.R. Owst, Literature
and Pulpit in the Medieval World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 163.
50
Charles Johnson, ed., Registrum Hamonis Hethe, Diocesis Roffensis, A.D. 1319–1352,
v. 2 (Canterbury and York Society, v. 48, 1948).
51
GL MS DL/C/205, 293r, Joan Hyndeley c. William Hyndeley.
118 chapter three

actions by shifting the blame to his wife’s unrestrained tongue. He

contended that her use of “very many opprobrious and despicable
words” was the cause of her beating.52 Similar rationalisations were
put forward by Simon Munkton (1345–6), Henry Venables (1410)
and Thomas Nesfeld (1396), all defendants in cases of applications for
separations at York.53 The case of Nesfeld c. Nesfeld, in particular,
demonstrates that disobedience was thought to excuse violence. In
order to refute Margery Nesfeld’s claims of cruelty, her husband’s
former servant shrewdly painted a picture of constant aggravation
by a potentially lecherous woman. In the face of Margery’s insub-
ordination and irreverence her husband Thomas emerged as the
voice of reason. While the servant agreed that Thomas was driven
to beat his wife, his account maintains moderate chastisement even
when confronted with open rebellion and death threats. His testimony
was likely modelled on a contemporary mind-set shared by the rep-
resentatives of the court, that women frequently incited their hus-
bands to physical abuse through their disobedience. In this testimony,
the gendered weapons of marital discord are distinguished: male
physical force, female verbal aggression. Whether or not the church’s
officials judged scolding as sufficient grounds for physical violence is
still unclear because the sentences have not survived for any of these
cases; however, some of its defendants evidently believed that a wife’s
scolding justified the use of violence.
Only one case indicates the English church entertained seriously
defences of this nature. Before a fifteenth century ecclesiastical court
in London, Andrew Peerson was forced to admit that he had indeed
exchanged vows with Agnes Wilson a year earlier. Since then he had
refused to have his marriage solemnised, because Agnes had shown
herself to be such a great scold and had even been indicted by the
local courts for her behaviour. Rather than deny the validity of the
marriage, the judge chose instead to grant Andrew and Agnes a
judicial separation, ordering the two not to remarry.54
The records also point to the possibility that the courts held a dis-
obedient wife accountable for her husband’s violent actions. A York
act book notes a case from 1400 concerning Thomas Tebbe of

52
GL MSS 9065, fo. 62r, Ann Styward c. Richard Styward.
53
These cases are examined in depth in Chapter Four.
54
Cited in Richard M. Wunderli, London Church Courts and Society on the Eve of the
Reformation (Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 1981), 121–2.
 causes of marital tension 119

Driffield. The Dean and Chapter summoned Thomas before the

court on the grounds of spousal mistreatment. His behaviour earned
him twelve floggings around the church, and he was ordered to treat
his wife “decently” in the future. The account highlighted also his
wife’s rebellious behaviour, tacitly implying that her vituperative
tongue may have provoked the abuse. For her part, she suffered no
immediate penalty but was required “decently” to obey her husband
under pain of twelve floggings.55
It is impossible to ignore the harsh implications of the court’s dou-
ble sentence in the case of Thomas Tebbe and his wife: Thomas
had beaten her repeatedly and expelled her from the family home,
not only because he had trouble with anger management, but also
because, through her own rebellion, she had provoked her husband’s
wrath. The court’s decision to hold Tebbe’s wife responsible, even
in part, for the violence inflicted upon her seems to suggest that her
disobedience excuses the abuse. The court’s decision in the case of
Tebbe’s wife was not that remarkable. For example, when Thomas
Rigton of York and his wife Ebote appeared before the court in
1406 to respond to allegations that Thomas had long abused his
wife, the court required Ebote to swear formally that, in the future,
“she would humbly obey her said husband.”56 Even in situations of
admittedly severe abuse, the church might still hold the wife liable.
According to a late fourteenth-century consistory court book, Richard
Epworth of York exercised great cruelty in his conduct towards his
wife, Margaret. He is described as having “fiercely or inappropri-
ately beat[en] [her], and excessively or indecently castigated [her].”57
Under pain of one hundred shillings and twelve floggings around
the church, the court ordered Richard to refrain from any further
cruelty towards his wife. The court also recognised Margaret’s cul-
pability in her own abuse: it commanded that henceforth she obey
her husband under pain of twenty-four floggings.
The decision of the courts Christian to blame marital conflict on
both halves of the couple confirms Thomas Nesfeld’s perception of
the essential differences between husbands and wives: medieval soci-
ety believed that men and women differed fundamentally in the way
they participated in marital strife. Men expressed their unhappiness

55
York M 2(1) f, fo. 35.
56
York D & C AB/1, fo. 39.
57
York M 2(1) c, fo. 27.
120 chapter three

through physical violence; women, on the other hand, resorted to

vocal disobedience. Both were blameworthy.

Spousal Non-Cohabitation: The Church as a Cause of Tension

Marital disharmony generally does not resolve itself. While the laity
and the church involved themselves in the marriages of others in
the hopes of eliminating the causes of marital tension, this solution
was not wholly successful. Some cases of marital disharmony erupted
into spousal homicide; the more usual route was an informal divorce.
Unhappy couples in later medieval England seldom turned to the
church courts in order to terminate their marriages. Rather, they
simply ‘divorced’ themselves. These informal and often long-term
separations were the source of much frustration for officials of the
church. Spousal non-cohabitation not only debased the sacrament of
marriage; it was the breeding ground for a wide variety of other
marital transgressions, from adultery to bigamy. The courts of the
medieval church dedicated themselves to reconciling separated cou-
ples at almost any cost. Undoubtedly, this approach caused more
marital tension than it resolved. The reunion of a couple who had
long since abandoned any pretence of marriage was not an event
to be celebrated, and created the ideal atmosphere for abuse.
The records of an ex officio act book from the diocese of Canterbury
over the course of the years 1468 to 1474 (presented below in Table
3.1) demonstrate that many couples chose to separate without the
blessing of the church. At the same time, these records show that
the courts were not willing to tolerate unsanctioned separation:

Table 3.1: Charges of Spousal Non-Cohabitation, Canterbury 1468–74

1468 2
1469 12
1470 9
1471 4
1472 6
1473 6
1474 3

Total 4258

58
Compiled from Canterbury Y.1.11. The specific book was chosen for this study
simply because of its late date. With such high figures for the period of 1468–74, this
 causes of marital tension 121

Each case represents an accusation of spousal non-cohabitation levelled

at an individual offender, that is, the husband or wife alone rather
than a joint presentment. Among these forty-two cases, there are only
three instances in which husband and wife appeared separately in
court for the same charge. Considering this overlap, over the course
of this seven-year period the court penalised thirty-nine couples for
a failure to co-reside.
In all probability, thirty-nine cases of spousal non-cohabitation
over a period of seven years does not represent the total figures for
actual cases of informal separation in the entire diocese of Canterbury.
None the less, it is a very high figure on its own, indicating that the
courts were anxious to uncover evidence of self-divorce and to compel
offenders into reconciliation, however unwelcome this might be. These
figures contrast well with a similar study of the Norman abbatial
peculiar of the officiality of Cérisy la Forêt in the diocese of Bayeux,
buttressing the notion that English ecclesiastics were especially vigilant
in the prosecution of spousal non-residence. Over the course of the
years 1314 to 1413 in the officiality of Cérisy, the court prosecuted
fourteen cases of informal separation.59 Given the great disparity in
the length of time involved in this study when compared to that of
the Canterbury ex officio act book, the archbishop of Canterbury
appears to have been vastly more concerned with marital dissolution
than were the Bayeux officials. The Hereford visitation returns of 1397,
in which the court heard twenty-seven cases of informal separation
in that year alone, confirm an English preoccupation with the irreg-
ular dissolution of marriage.60 Even the penalties imposed by the two
jurisdictions for cases of this genre varied greatly. The officiality of
Cérisy exhibited a striking reluctance to punish the offenders or to
enforce conformity with the rulings of the court, whereas the visitation
returns of Hereford include the penitential floggings and public humil-
iation typical of English courts Christian of the medieval period.61

book would seem to suggest that the English church was more than willing to take an
active position on the regularisation of marriage even in the very late Middle Ages.
59
Finch, 17.
60
Finch, 21.
61
Finch, 24. This feature is echoed in cases of domestic violence. Parisian courts
were notoriously reluctant to award judicial separations. See Jean-Philippe Lévy,
“L’officialité de Paris et les questions familiales à la fin du XIV e siècle,” Études d’his-
toire du droit canonique dédiées à Gabriel Le Bras (2 vols, Paris: Sirey, 1965) 2: 1265–94.
See also Charles Donahue, Jr., “The Canon Law on the Formation of Marriage and
Social Practice in the Later Middle Ages,” Journal of Family History 8 (1983): 149–50.
122 chapter three

Of the thirty-nine cases of spousal non-residence appearing in the

Canterbury ex officio act book of 1468 to 1474, only two of the
accused chose to deny the allegations. Both Richard Potter of Harble-
down (Kent) and Agnes Borell of the parish of St Dunstan argued that
they were innocent of marital non-cohabitation because their spouses
had died and were buried at Guildford and Dunstable respectively.62
The remaining accusations went unchallenged by the offenders. The
difficulties encountered by the representatives of the court with these
particular cases reinforce that their concerns were well founded. Almost
half the couples (a total of seventeen) brought before the court exhib-
ited the anticipated complications: since the separation, one of the
delinquent spouses had taken a lover or had remarried. Although
the records omit any discussion of the length of separation between
husband and wife, the high numbers of spouses living elsewhere and
remarried affords proof that the separations were not recent and
were intended by those involved to be a permanent solution to their
marital woes.
Both the evidence of the cause papers and recent studies by other
historians in this field support this conclusion. Cases of judicial sep-
aration from the York cause papers affirm that informal separations
might be lengthy. Margery and Thomas Nesfeld had separated at least
four years prior to their appearance in court, Margery de Devoine and
Richard Scot eight years, Cecilia Wyvell and Henry Venables seven
years, and Agnes and Peter Benson six years.63 These four couples
probably intended their separations to be permanent and only sued
in court once something happened to bring their relations to a head,
perhaps an ex officio presentment for spousal non-cohabitation, or a
sudden desire for maintenance. In this respect, ecclesiastical support
of the permanency of marriage conflicted with lay conceptions. As
Finch has argued, “the church’s desire to control and regulate mar-
riage would not represent the imposition of order upon disorder, but
rather the gradual erosion and replacement of an existing system of

62
Canterbury Y.1.11, fo. 70d and 87.
63
In his investigation of Cerisy and Hereford, Finch similarly encountered lengthy
separations, sometimes of an extreme nature. For example, Thomas la Pie and his
wife had been living in separate residences for five years before they appeared in
court at Cerisy in 1325, while Jean la Pie and his wife Jeanne had not slept with
each other in seventeen years, and both had taken lovers. Finch, 18, 17.
 causes of marital tension 123

law and custom by another.”64 Much like clandestine marriage,65 self-

divorce may have represented a remnant of the traditional system of
marriage in which conjugal unions were formed and unformed both
privately and with some ease. Self-divorce presented a similar threat to
the control of the church over marriage, and by extension, over the
laity and the state in which they lived. For that reason, church
officials sometimes may have prosecuted clandestine unions and self-
divorce under the rubric of sexual morality and female vulnerability.
The breach between sacred and secular understandings of mar-
riage raises the question: how effective were the courts in the actual
reconciliation of separated couples? Within the Canterbury ex officio
act book for the years 1468–74, the court summoned no one more
than once for spousal non-cohabitation. This finding contrasts with
the records of the Cerisy court, in which Jean le Scelé, for example,
appeared on three separate occasions for failing to live and share a
bed with his wife.66 Because of the court of Canterbury’s greater
dedication to punishment and reform, it is possible that penitents
simply respected the judgements of the court, shedding any recent
attachments and reforming their earlier conjugal unions. It is also
possible that at least some of these couples merely evaded any official
decision by manipulating the process. In a legal system in which
members of the community supply information voluntarily and in
which justice is local in nature, couples had numerous options to
escape legal proscription. If a couple could not buy silence, the most
logical course of action was for the offenders to move their residence.
Newcomers might easily hide the evidence of a past union, just as
a man and woman might pose as husband and wife without elicit-
ing the suspicions of their new neighbours. Amidst the relatively high

64
Andrew John Finch, “Crime and Marriage in Three Late Medieval Ecclesiastical
Jurisdictions: Cerisy, Rochester and Hereford” (Ph.D. diss., University of York,
1988), 65.
65
The English church railed against clandestine marriage until well into the early
modern period. While clandestine marriage was, in fact, legitimate (if sinful), the
church attempted to restrict opportunities for fraud and deception by making sure
that marriages were made public through a formal process that included ecclesias-
tical blessing. Nevertheless, many couples disregarded these provisions and married
clandestinely. For a discussion of the legal ramifications of clandestine marriage, see
Martin Ingram, “Spousals Litigation in the English Ecclesiastical Courts c. 1350–
c. 1640,” in Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage, ed. R.B.
Outhwaite (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 35–57.
66
Finch, “Repulsa uxore sua,” 18.
124 chapter three

levels of migration peculiar to post-plague England, this strategy would

have been an easy alternative for couples reluctant to renew an
unhappy union.67
Some couples did willingly submit to the wishes of the church courts.
When John Chamber of Langthorpe (Yorks.) and his wife Ellen
appeared before the court for spousal non-cohabitation and adultery,
they were not only ordered to resume their marriage but were forced
to undertake public penance for their actions by participating in a
procession around the cathedral church at York wearing the traditional
garb of white sheets.68 The case of John and Ellen was not exceptional.
Spousal non-cohabitation was a sin and a disgrace to marriage; thus,
a mere court order could not remedy the situation. Penance was
required to absolve the sin. Would any couple have willingly under-
taken such a public pronouncement of its moral inadequacies if both
persons were not equally willing to comply with the court’s decision?
It seems unlikely that this would have been the case. Couples in this
situation would not have shown up in court. Just how stable a mar-
riage could this have been if a court was required to intervene and
compel them to reconcile?
Charles Donahue, Jr. has argued persuasively that women in medie-
val England initiated marriage litigation for different reasons than did
men. More often than not, men began litigation in order to escape
one union and legalise another. Women, on the other hand, appeared
in court to restore a previous union or legitimise one that was in the
process of dissolution.69 The ex officio cases, at first glance, do not appear
to conform to Donahue’s model. The evidence of the ex officio act book
of 1468–74 indicate that the court considered wives delinquent nearly
as often as were husbands in cases of spousal non-cohabitation. Of the
forty-two individual cases of dereliction, twenty-five offenders were
male, seventeen were female. While the numbers favour male offenders,
the difference is not substantial, not enough to argue that the church
courts equated spousal non-residence with male desertion. None the
less, the language of the articles submitted in these cases betrays this

67
See L.R. Poos, A rural society after the Black Death: Essex 1350–1525 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 160–5.
68
York D & C AB/1, fo. 100.
69
Charles Donahue, Jr. “Female Plaintiffs in Marriage Cases in the Court of
York in the Later Middle Ages: What can we learn from the Numbers?” in Wife
and Widow in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1993), 197.
 causes of marital tension 125

impression. The allegations of non-cohabitation in the records are

exceedingly formulaic. Although usually abbreviated, the wording of
the offence is standard: ‘John Tailor of Faversham does not cohabit
with his wife.’ Seven of the forty-two allegations, however, adopt an
entirely different wording: ‘John Tailor of Faversham expelled his
wife.’ Usually appended to this brief statement is the further damn-
ing assertion: ‘and he keeps another [wife].’ In these particular alle-
gations, then, the charge is not merely spousal non-cohabitation, but
eviction from the family home. The perpetrator in each of these
seven cases was invariably the husband. The preponderance of male
offenders in cases of forced non-cohabitation shifts the balance in
support of the belief that the courts held men primarily responsible
for the dissolution of conjugal unions. The evidence of another ex
officio act book for the diocese of Canterbury, covering the years
1449–57, upholds this verdict. Although the figures are lower, in the
seven cases of marital non-cohabitation presented before the court
the delinquent spouses were all male.70 Doubtless, the courts did not
fail to notice that men were more inclined to dissolve a union than
preserve it; this inclination may have actually provided the impetus
to pursue cases of non-cohabitation. As the earlier cases of economic
deprivation imply, without the support of a husband, a wife was vul-
nerable to a variety of evils, including prostitution. Pursuing cases
of spousal non-cohabitation, then, may have been a less directly obvi-
ous part of the church’s mission to protect wives.
A case from the diocese of London indicates that some men
opposed the church’s efforts to intervene in cases of spousal repudiation.
In 1476 when Katherine Burwell approached her husband William
and asked him to receive her back into their home and treat her as
his wife, his response was firm. He never wished to live with her as
his wife, nor treat her as his wife, and if any judge should try to
restore their marriage or compel Katherine to adhere to him as his
wife, then he would seize a knife and slit her throat and kill her
without mercy.71 Whether William’s behaviour lived up to his boast-
ing is not known; however, his comments make it clear the medieval
laity might treat the church’s intervention with some hostility.

70
Canterbury X.1.1, passim. Andrew Finch makes a similar observation in his
study. He notes that in instances of desertion or spousal repudiation the husband
usually took the initiative. Finch, “Repulsa uxore sua,” 25.
71
LMA MS DL/C/205, fo. 313r, Katherine Burwell, alias Bachelere c. William
Bachelere.
126 chapter three

The church courts sometimes played an even more invasive role

in medieval marriages. It was within the purview of the court not
only to order a resumption of the marital union, but also to demand
payment of the conjugal debt. Such an order could derive from two
possible scenarios. First, spouses might plead a suit in court in order
to enforce the payment of the debt. Not surprisingly, however, this
particular suit seldom appears among the records of medieval mar-
riage litigation.72 Second, the representatives of the court might also
take it upon themselves to intercede in unhappy marriages and
demand that couples adhere to each other and pay the conjugal
debt. In the York and Canterbury records, this degree of interference
in the personal lives of the laity, if not common, was more frequent
than one might suspect. Over the course of the period 1372 to 1492,
there were at least thirty-four cases of the diocesan court demanding
restitution of conjugal rights.73 The court’s willingness to interfere in
marriage in such an intimate way demonstrates the kind of power
the church wished to wield over the lives of parishioners. At the
same time, the determination of the courts in these matters reveals
a powerful source of marital tension. While marriage was rarely pri-
vate in its inception or regulation, marital affection was a private
matter not easily subject to manipulation. This is evidenced best by
the court’s inability to oversee compliance of their rulings. The courts’
“effort to re-establish the physical reality of the marriages, through
enforcing the mutual obligation to pay the debt, largely failed in the
face of the obvious hostility of those involved.”74 A couple might
unite to hoodwink the courts or even openly rebel; and yet, the
ramifications of their sin in debasing marriage and defying the church
may have left one or both spouses with a guilty conscious. Psychological

72
A case of restitution of conjugal rights might cost upwards of 33 s. 4 d.
(Helmholz, 161). Given that restitution of conjugal rights probably only became an
issue in cases of spousal desertion, it seems likely that an abandoned wife on her
own may not have been wealthy enough to afford the high costs of litigation.
73
Canterbury Y.1.1 (1372–5), fo. 18; Y.1.2 (1398–9), fo. 110; Y.1.3 (1416–23),
fos 38, 40, 112, 113, 229 and 240; Y.1.4 (1419–25), fos 79, 88, 93, 95, 97, 114,
159, and 162; Y.1.6 (1463–8), fos 120, 186, 260; Y.1.7 (1459–63), fos 47, 54, 171;
Y.1.8 (1468–74), fos 78, 261, 299, 299, 35; Y.1.12 (1474–9), fol. 51, 90, 279; and
Y.1.15 (1488–92), fos 66, 134, and 234. It is perhaps significant that the act books
for the years 1500–1502, and 1503–1505 contain no mention of cases of this sort.
It is entirely possible that an invasion of personal privacy of this type no longer
suited communal mores.
74
Finch, “Repulsa uxore sua,” 24.
 causes of marital tension 127

baggage of this nature must have been a poor base from which to
reconstruct a shattered marriage.
From a modern perspective, perhaps the most unexpected recon-
ciliation of spousal non-cohabiters is that of John le Cupper (Notts.)
and his wife Agatha. The two appeared before the court at York in
the year 1298–9 in response to Agatha’s request for a divorce a
mensa et thoro. Her reasons for the separation were multiple. She main-
tained that John had committed much adultery, even though she
had never given him cause to pursue other women. Moreover, his
conduct towards her had been less than exemplary. She recounted
how one night, against her will, John abducted Agatha to his home
and “willingly and consciously he lay with her and knew her car-
nally.” His violent treatment of her and his flagrant extramarital sex
life constituted, in Agatha’s mind, grounds for a judicial separation.
Nevertheless, the register insinuates that the archbishop thought other-
wise. For the ‘violent abduction,’ John was presented before the court
of the ordinary and required to pay a fine of £20 or be flogged on
ten days around the market at Nottingham. Through the interven-
tion of the court and other friends, the couple was reunited, but the
registers warns that if John should treat his wife badly in the future
the court would require him to pay a fine of £10 or be flogged on
five days in the above-mentioned manner. He must treat his wife
honourably and with marital affection and “he must not commit any
serious fault against her.” The record continues briefly to mention
that John and Agatha’s son, John Kyt, had finally settled his dispute
with his father.75
The case of John and Agatha offers a tale of abuse that today
might be categorised as marital rape, although canon lawyers of the
Middle Ages generally would not have seen it as such. Canonists
argued that a husband could not rape his wife, choosing to believe
that if a woman had consented to marriage then she had already
given her consent to intercourse.76 Canon law clearly stated that it
was a spouse’s responsibility to engage in sexual intercourse on
demand, even if the act might seem sinful, because it was better to

75
Brown, Register of John Le Romeyn, 1. nos. 254, 279–80.
76
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 70; James A. Brundage, “Implied
Consent to Intercourse,” in Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and
Medieval Societies, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research
Library and Collection, 1993), 245–56.
128 chapter three

commit the sin of fornication on a holy day or even in a holy place

than it was to betray the conjugal union.77 With this in mind, although
John used undue force by compelling his wife into the act, Agatha
was equally guilty for spurning her marital duty. Given John’s his-
tory of repeated adultery, however, it seems these rules did not apply
in Agatha’s situation because the adultery of one spouse should have
exempted the other from the payment of the conjugal debt. Hence,
the official of the archbishop may have understood John’s actions as
not only an excessive display of violence, but indeed rape.
A comparison of the assigned penalties between this case and the
more typical kind of rape attest to the harsh treatment of John le
Cupper by the courts. A mere thirteen days before Agatha appeared
in court in the hopes of having her separation approved by the arch-
bishop, Archbishop Newark was confronted with the case of James
of Pocklington, rector of the church at Holme, convicted of abduct-
ing and raping one of his parishioners in April of the previous year.
While rape normally fell within the purview of the royal courts, as
a cleric James was able to claim benefit of clergy and have his crime
removed to the church court. In lieu of the execution that a con-
viction of rape garnered in the king’s court, the archbishop’s court
sentenced James to pay twenty shillings to the young woman whom
he had offended in five-shilling increments over the course of the
next four years. In addition, he was required to enter into a bond
of ten marks to guarantee his future good conduct, with the threat
of a further thirty marks in the event he returned to his criminal
way of life.78
While the archbishop did not lightly excuse James of Pocklington,
his immediate fine was less than that of John le Cupper, even if his
monition was similar. The chief distinction between the two cases is
the nature of the relationship between victim and accused; in each,
the attack was a breach of trust of varying degrees. That the arch-
bishop chose to punish John le Cupper’s offence much more severely
than James of Pocklington’s supports the idea that he believed John’s
transgression to be the more egregious of the two. Because modern

77
For a fuller discussion of this subject, see Brundage, “Sexual Equality in
Medieval Canon Law,” 66–79.
78
Brown, Register of John Le Romeyn, 1. nos. 249, 276–77 (this volume also con-
tains the register for Henry of Newark).
 causes of marital tension 129

courtrooms seldom recognise marital rape as such, the inclusion of

this case among the records of the medieval archbishop’s business is
quite astonishing. Yet, the church courts of the medieval era were
much more attuned to the sexual lives of their litigants than it is
possible to imagine today. John le Cupper’s appearance in court and
his amercement for violent abduction is an indication that the medieval
courts Christian may have been better equipped to deal with this
kind of offence, and more willing to accept that transgressions of
this nature might occur between married people.
Given the church’s willingness to acknowledge the severity of vio-
lence between the two, it may seem surprising that they chose to
reunite John and Agnes anyway. The account demonstrates that the
archbishop was led to believe reconciliation was in the couple’s best
interests. The register notes that both the court and the couple’s
friends were in favour of reconciliation. If those who knew John and
Agatha intimately were inclined to believe they might overcome their
differences, then the court’s representatives were in no position to
disagree. Also, the tale of John and Agatha’s appearance in court
concludes with the settlement of a dispute between Agatha’s son and
husband. While the record does not make explicit the source of con-
tention between the two, this disagreement may have been the orig-
inal cause of strife between John and Agatha. Having resolved the
dispute, the archbishop might have had every reason to believe that
John and Agatha would resume their marriage in a happier state.
While the case of John le Cupper and his wife Agatha was an
atypical example of abuse, the court’s decision to reconcile in this
situation makes an important point about the role played by the
English church in marriage. If any of the couples who enjoyed sep-
arate residences experienced even a degree of the violence John
inflicted on Agnes, from a modern perspective, it is hard to imagine
that reconciliation was in their best interests. In terms of John and
Agnes in particular, forced coitus is a poor psychological base for
rebuilding a marital relationship. While the goal of the church often
was to mitigate the circumstances exacerbating situations of abuse,
by bringing about unwanted reconciliations, the actions of the church
itself may have caused marital violence as often as it resolved it.
130 chapter three

Conclusion

An examination of the causes of marital tension offers mixed mes-

sages about the role played by the church in the regulation of
medieval marriages. On the one hand, the English church admirably
attempted to identify causes of domestic violence, such as adultery
and spousal desertion, and tried to eliminate abuse by addressing
the heart of the problem. The medieval church, at times, even cham-
pioned the plight of women. By forcing men to stand up to their
obligation in supporting their wives, the church undoubtedly prevented
many women from experiencing a descent into destitution. From a
Catholic perspective, it may even have saved their souls. The will-
ingness of the church to acknowledge an instance of sexual violence
in marriage is even more astounding and signifies that the church
recognised the dangers a woman faced in the late medieval culture
of marriage. The church did not generally consider marital violence
a problem in and of itself; rather, it was symptom of marital break-
down, provoked by a variety of other factors. In this respect, medieval
England may have been much more progressive than Western soci-
ety today. Understanding that violence had many recognisable causes
and addressing these causes communally through both official and
unofficial means, medieval England had many checks and balances
in place to head abuse off at the pass.
On the other hand, the church’s willingness to hold disobedient
wives accountable for their husbands’ violent actions contradicts con-
temporary notions of self-governance. A husband was not only required
to govern his household properly, the church expected him to exert
a measure of self-control over his own actions. Perhaps, disobedient
wives presented an exception to this rule. The determination of the
church to reconcile non-cohabiting spouses, and thereby create the
ideal conditions for marital disharmony, as well makes it clear that
the resolution of marital discord placed second in priority to the
upholding of the sacrament. Accordingly, the church may have exac-
erbated situations of abuse; it is hard to imagine that a couple rec-
onciled against their wishes resumed their marriages peaceably and
happily.
 CHAPTER FOUR

THE ACCEPTABILITY OF MARITAL VIOLENCE:

SIX CASE STUDIES

At the very least, the church provided medieval wives with some
recourse from abusive spouses. A victim of domestic violence might
apply to the courts for a divorce a mensa et thoro, literally a separa-
tion from bed and board, awarded on the grounds of cruelty or
adultery.1 Perhaps not surprisingly, medieval canon lawyers remained
divided on how the divorce a mensa et thoro should be applied in
practice. Most medieval canonists recognised fornication as the only
acceptable premise for a separation from table and bed, and it was
not until the sixteenth century that canonists generally agreed upon
the necessity of separation in abusive marriages. Some medieval
canonists did argue in favour of considering physical abuse an accept-
able premise for spousal non-cohabitation. For example, Raymond
of Peniafort made it clear that in cases where a husband was suing
for a restoration of conjugal rights, a wife had the right to refuse
cohabitation if the violence was acute enough to warrant it. He
declared, “a man seeking restoration should not be restored [if ] his
cruelty is so great that adequate security cannot be provided to the
fearful woman.”2 Pope Innocent III declared, “if a husband were so
cruel to his wife that no security would permit her to live with him
without fear, the wife would be justified in living separately from
her spouse. The pope added, however, that if the husband could
furnish adequate security to allay his wife’s apprehensions of ill-
treatment, she was bound to return to his bed and board.”3 The
approaches of these two canonists may have influenced and encour-
aged the practice of awarding separations on the grounds of cruelty,

1
It was also possible to obtain a judicial separation on the grounds of heresy,
but in England this was sufficiently rare that it is almost not worthy of mention.
2
Raymundus de Peniafort, Summa de poenitentia et de matrimonio cum glossis Johannis
de Friburgo 4.22 (Rome 1603; repr. Farnborough: Gregg Press, 1967), 568.
3
James A. Brundage, “Domestic Violence in Classical Canon Law,” in Violence
in Medieval Society, ed. Richard W. Kaeuper (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2000), 189.
132 chapter four

although it is important to note that the courts, not the canonists,

introduced the practice of granting separations and thus court practices
often differed substantially from canonical guidelines. As Brundage
observes, “[t]he courts granted divorces with the right of remarriage
when the law said they could not do so, they granted separations
on grounds that the canons did not recognize, and conversely some
of the grounds for separation that are most elaborately discussed in
the commentaries appear very infrequently in practice.”4 Brundage
even cites an exceptional example of the courts awarding a separation
on the grounds of habitual drunkenness, for which no precedent
exists in the canonical writings.5 By the mid-thirteenth century, the
church courts of medieval Europe generally were willing to grant a
separation for cruelty, providing the tales of abuse presented by the
litigants were sufficient to be categorised as near fatal and the
husband’s behaviour was incorrigible.6 A separation from table and
bed was decidedly not the same as an annulment. The couple was
still deemed married; the application was compulsory merely to sanc-
tion separate living accommodations. The existence of such a complex
suit forces us to ask an obvious question: if assertions of precontract
were such an easy ‘out,’ and self-divorce was so common, why do
those few applications for separation exist at all? Would it not have
been more logical to sue for precontract with a lover rather than
stay married for an eternity to an abusive spouse?
One possible explanation for this quandary is that plaintiffs were
seeking a guaranteed escape. Self-divorce required mutual agreement;
sometimes consensus was simply not feasible, especially when alimony
was concerned. If one-half of the couple was not participating enthu-
siastically in the deception, a trumped up charge of precontract might
be apparent to the court; but who can quibble with domestic bloodshed
recounted by troubled friends and family? Armed with a solid case
and copious evidence, a victim of abuse might have preferred to
stick to the less deceptive path. Cases sued as divorce a mensa et thoro,
then, represent situations of abuse egregious enough to comply with
public (if not always ecclesiastical) definitions of cruelty.

4
James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 548.
5
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 511.
6
For a good discussion of canonical debate on the subject, see A. Esmein, Le
mariage en droit canonique, 2nd ed. (2 vols., Paris: R. Génestal and J. Dauvillier,
1929–35), 2.106–13.
 the acceptability of marital violence 133

How did the church and society identify ‘cruelty’ in this context?
Repeatedly, historians have argued that wife abuse was acceptable
in the Middle Ages, as long as it was ‘within limits.’ The church’s
official line in this matter, as discussed above, is difficult to discern.
Canonical legislation does not give cruelty a clear definition; yet,
clerical writers of the period relay evidence as to how the church
might have understood it. Thomas Chobham observed that the church
explained ‘coercion’ as the level of force employed to extract consent
to marriage from an unwilling bride or groom. Basing his under-
standing on the writing of Alexander III, Chobham stated that the
“degree of violence and fear must be such that it could turn a sta-
ble man, such as fear of death or physical mutilation.”7 While he
did not suggest the courts should apply this definition universally to
all marital litigation, vocabulary of this kind appears in most of the
English cases of domestic violence, and as such implies that it was
ubiquitous. The evidence of the church courts, then, helps to recon-
struct medieval perceptions of acceptable domestic violence. The
records of the ecclesiastical province of York during the later medieval
period provide the ideal venue to explore these boundaries. English
scribes were meticulous in both recording and preserving the details
of these cases, and as such shed some light on contemporary concepts
of violence and marital disharmony.
While cause papers exist for both ecclesiastical provinces (York
and Canterbury), the York papers are by far the more complete and
revealing where cases of divorce a mensa et thoro are concerned. Perhaps
because of the much earlier dates of the Canterbury material,8 the
documentation of the Canterbury cause papers is meagre in com-
parison. While the York cause papers often include lengthy files
boasting witness depositions and libels from the plaintiffs, the Canter-
bury material is exceptionally brief (often a single membrane of parch-
ment that may contain no more than a paragraph summary of the
case). Moreover, the Canterbury cause papers do not include any
detailed cases of divorce a mensa et thoro on the grounds of violence.
Consequently, the York material offers a much more fertile ground

7
Thomas Chobham, Thomae de Chobham. Summa Confessorum, trans. F. Bromfield
(Louvain: Analecta Medieavalie Namurcensia, v. 25, 1968), 142.
8
The Sede Vacante Scrap Book and the Ecclesiastical Suit Rolls are Canterbury’s
equivalent of York’s cause papers. Both collections are concentrated in the thirteenth
century, with some material from the early fourteenth.
134 chapter four

for the study of cases of domestic violence in this period. For the
entire province of York in the later medieval period (that is, from
the fourteenth to the very early sixteenth centuries), there are only
six files which may be identified as applications for separation on
these grounds.9 It is important to note that this represents only a
tiny fraction of the number of cases arising from matrimonial dis-
putes that appeared before the archbishop’s court; for the same
period, there are at least 202 other marriage-related causes, many
of which are very complete files indeed.10 The surviving documen-
tation for judicial separations varies. Some offer only a few mem-
branes of witness depositions; one case contains a stunning sixty-two
documents. In three of the six cases, the judgement has not sur-
vived. In the remaining three, two were decided in favour of the
plaintiff. In all six cases, the victim of abuse was female.
These six cases are invaluable sources of collective narratives of
marital violence. Each case boasts a compilation of witness deposi-
tions that offer first-hand accounts of violent encounters between hus-
band and wife, and their own unique interpretations of this violence.
As such, it is possible to gain an understanding of how contempo-
rary perceptions of the power relations within marriage were inter-
nalised and perpetuated. Moreover, these narratives help us to explain
village responses to marital violence. Not only do they clarify why
men and women chose to intervene in spousal violence, but also

9
Because the extant documentation is so varied and incomplete, it is difficult
to identify the action in each cause with absolute certainty. Missing libels, in par-
ticular, force the historian to rely on other sources for indications of what action
the plaintiff might have sued. For example, in the case of Margery de Devoine and
Richard Scot (YBI CP. E 257), all that survives are four membranes of six witness
depositions focusing on Richard’s adultery and maltreatment of his wife. Accordingly,
one might perceive this cause in a couple of different ways. I am inclined to see
this case as an application for divorce a mensa et thoro for two reasons. First, the
accounts focus almost exclusively on Richard’s poor conduct as a husband, and fail
to respond to any particular allegations imputed against Margery. The general tenor,
as a result, is very much that of a woman desperate to get away from an abusive
husband. Second, the case is endorsed as Devoine c. Scot, suggesting that Margery
was indeed the plaintiff in this action (although this does not exclude the possibil-
ity of a counter-suit). Charles Donahue, Jr., who is much more familiar with the
records of the medieval English church, has been kind enough to point out to me
the possibility that these depositions might well represent Margery’s defence to an
action for restoration of conjugal rights. My decision to treat CP. E 257 as a case
of divorce a mensa et thoro is a judgement call, but one that I feel reflects the sen-
timents expressed in the depositions for this cause.
10
This figure may include repeat appearances by the same litigants.
 the acceptability of marital violence 135

conversely, they help us to understand why others may have cho-

sen not to involve themselves.
Collectively, these six cases confirm that litigants and the courts
understood marital violence in a gendered fashion. Gendered responses
are evident in a number of ways. First, men and women in the
courtroom described marital disharmony in entirely different ways.
While women were concerned most with physical violence, men were
much more troubled by adultery. Although both transgressions were
violations of the popular ethics of marriage, the latter was much less
ambiguous, and may accordingly have been a more obvious target
for communal disdain. That men chose not to focus on male vio-
lence, however, is an indication that, in part, they may have con-
doned it. Second, the court strategies adopted by litigants and their
deponents very much reflect a desire to stay within the acceptable
gender paradigm. Stories recounted by plaintiffs and their concerned
witnesses abound with images of female passivity: good, obedient
wives who, only through their husband’s failure to live up to social
expectations, endured unbearable living conditions. Defendants manip-
ulated the same paradigm. Husbands accused of wife beating denied
the abuse and chose instead to paint themselves the ideal patriarchs:
when faced with rebellion and scorn from their wives, these anxious
bridegrooms had no choice but to reform their wives’ behaviour with
a firm hand. Such a wide gap between the narratives of plaintiff
and defendant make it clear that an entirely truthful account of the
abuse is likely unattainable from these records. Litigants recounted
tales of abuse that would meet the court’s strict requirements. In
this respect, Laura Gowing reminds us of another significant detail
in unravelling the meaning of these depositions. She notes that
it was the proctors’ responsibility to make comprehensive legal narra-
tives out of people’s words, selecting relevant evidence, ordering it, and
ensuring it made sense to the court. Probably it was the proctors who
had the most hand in deciding what details were the basis of a case:
the exact words of abuse in defamation suits, the gradations of vio-
lence in complaints of cruelty, or the signs of affection and familiarity
that could prove promises of marriage.11

11
Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 45.
136 chapter four

None of these witnesses entered an interrogation without some con-

tact with the proctor (an attorney in the ecclesiastical court). Each
tale was “coached”; the proctor knew exactly what details to include
in order to be successful in court.12 The stories of abuse drawn from
the cause papers tell us much about the church’s, as well as con-
temporary, expectations of the unacceptable limits of violence. To
this end, litigants implemented creative dispute strategies, and some
may even have borrowed freely from the vast repository of instruc-
tional literature and lore associated with the church, knowing that
the officials of the church might not reject its own teachings. Finally,
these six cases draw attention to the role played by male honour in
marriage. Defendants regularly denied allegations of wife beating,
not because they wished to keep their marriages together, but because
courts and litigants alike thought wife beating was scandalous, and
unmanly behaviour.

Devoine c. Scot (1349)

The case of Devoine c. Scot13 brings us much closer to an under-

standing of the limits of violence, and the kind of allegations a plaintiff
believed she needed to impute if she wished to succeed in an appli-
cation for a judicial separation. More important still, this case sub-
stantiates that litigants, their proctors, and the courts may not have
perceived physical violence, on its own, as sufficient grounds for a
separation.
Margery de Devoine and her husband Richard Scot had a stormy
relationship. As Peter de Walworth of Benwell, witness for the plaintiff,
tells it, the honeymoon had been over for Margery and Richard for
quite some time, figuratively speaking. Eight years before the suit,
on a date that neither he nor the other witnesses could recall, in
the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Richard beat Margery with a staff
about the head and shoulders, wounding her severely and knocking

12
For a good discussion of the instance process in the ecclesiastical courts, see
Norma Adams and Charles Donahue, Jr., eds., Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts
of the Province of Canterbury c. 1200–1301 (London: Selden Society, 1981), 37–56.
13
YBI CP. E 257, Margery de Devoine c. Richard Scot (1349).
 the acceptability of marital violence 137

one of her eyes from the socket.14 Margery was in such a pitiable
state that neighbours fetched a doctor to their home at once in order
to treat her wounds only to have Richard inform the doctor in no
uncertain terms to leave, threatening to break both his arms and
legs. Margery’s injuries were left to heal unattended. Another wit-
ness for the plaintiff, John de Halghton, commented that Margery
later fled to a hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on her own, dressed
only in her underclothes. Employing the language of abuse typical
of these documents, the witnesses note that “because of the cruelty
and harshness of her husband, and out of fear for her life, she refused
to return to her husband.” None of the witnesses chose to reveal
how this issue was resolved, or even if it was, and at least one witness
seemed to believe the two were no longer married,15 subtly implying
that an illicit separation already may have occurred as far back as
eight years ago.
Five other witnesses repeated variations of this tale of abuse, each
depicting the altercation as the only instance of excessive violence
between the two. Yet, none of them describes this behaviour as
unprecedented. They all agreed that Richard generally mistreated
his wife, that his behaviour was well known in the community, and
that Margery did not dare cohabit with her husband out of fear for
her life. Each of these elements was essential to the case and was
included in virtually all applications for separation. However, Margery’s
witnesses offer concrete evidence to suggest that a grain of truth lies
behind these allegations. As Peter de Walworth de Benwell states,
this was not the first time Richard underwent discipline for his behav-
iour. When called before the official of the archdeacon of Nor-
thumberland to respond to allegations of ill conduct,16 Richard had
gone so far as to declare publicly that “it was his right to beat

14
This interpretation of the events is deeply indebted to the work of Frederik
Pederson. While I was unable to read the damaged portion of Peter de Walworth
of Benwell’s testimony, Pedersen had less difficulty. Pedersen’s translation of this
event made me aware of the inclusion in this tale of the ocular displacement—a
factor that I will return to later in this chapter. For Pedersen’s translation, see his
Marriage Disputes in Medieval England (London: Hambledon, 2000), 136.
15
When recounting the tale of abuse, Margery is referred to as his “then wife”
(tunc uxorem), suggesting that while she had been married to him at the time of the
incident, she was no longer. This formulation is actually a fairly common inclusion
in the court records for both provinces and would seem to confirm Helmholz’s
belief that self-divorce was a popular resolution to marital disharmony.
16
Unfortunately, the deposition does not elaborate on the specific nature of the
sin that landed Richard in court before the archdeacon of Northumberland.
138 chapter four

his wife.” Peter’s decision to incorporate this detail into his testimony
hints that both the witness and the archdeacon of Northumberland
did not agree.17
From a modern perspective, surely such a brutal beating should
have been ample evidence to prove a dangerous marriage. Nevertheless,
Margery’s approach to litigation implies that she was not confident
of qualifying for a separation on these grounds alone. Prudently, she
increased her chances of success by including allegations of adultery.
Her witnesses offered testimony to confirm that Richard not only
had adulterous relations with as many as seven women, but these
unions had produced many illegitimate children, all of whom he sup-
ported and recognised as his own.
The reasons why women like Margery felt it necessary to incorporate
claims of adultery in their requests for separation is one that has
been the source of some debate.18 Alison McRae-Spencer writes that
a woman’s “case is greatly helped if the husband can be seen by
the court to be blameworthy in another area of his life which is
even less defensible than violence towards his wife.”19 The unwavering
assertion that male adultery is less ‘defensible’ than male violence
notwithstanding, her point is appropriate. If a woman was at all
uncertain whether the incidents of violence recounted by her witnesses
would fulfil the requirements for judicial separation, then it made
sense also to paint her husband as an immoral character. In addition,
because adultery was another permissible justification for separation,
it was the most obvious choice to pad a case of cruelty. The answer
to this question may be in the process itself. James Brundage notes
that the courts Christian exercised what is known as the ‘clean-hands
rule’: one adulterous spouse might not charge the other with adultery,
regardless of how public the affair.20 In this situation, Margery might

17
YBI CP. E 257/2.
18
Early modernists, however, have performed most of the research in this field.
See Keith Thomas, “The Double Standard,” Journal of History of Ideas 20 (1959):
195–216; Tim Stretton, Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge:
University of Cambridge Press, 1998), 194–201; and Gowing, 184, 188.
19
Alison McRae-Spencer, “Putting Women in Their Place: Social and Legal
Attitudes towards Violence in Marriage in Late-Medieval England,” The Ricardian
10 (1995): 190.
20
James A. Brundage, “Sexual Equality in Medieval Canon Law,” in Medieval
Women and the Sources of Medieval History, ed. Joel T. Rosenthal (Athens: University
of Georgia Press, 1990), 67. See also Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in
Medieval Europe, 244.
 the acceptability of marital violence 139

have been attempting to secure her reputation by being the first to

bandy about accusations of infidelity.21
These allegations are noteworthy because they contradict the work
of historians who have argued in favour of a firm double standard
in the medieval period, one that rigidly structured the sexual behav-
iour of women, while showing indifference to the conduct of men.22
In order for Margery’s witnesses to speak reprovingly of Richard’s
actions, their accusations must echo a wider sentiment shared by
members of the medieval community that male infidelity is also rep-
rehensible. As Shannon McSheffrey has argued, to posit a double
standard in sexual behaviour in the late medieval period is to con-
struct too simple a paradigm.23 “Late medieval patriarchy brought
with it the concept of governance: not just the rule of men over
women, but also the responsibility of men to use that rule wisely.
In addition, each man was expected to rule himself and contain his
own lustful will. The limits of respectable behavior were placed
differently for men and for women, but by no means was a man’s
sexual life irrelevant to his good name.”24
Margery may have added the adulterous relationship to brace
what she saw as a weak claim of abuse. In the absence of a libel,
we must also recognise the possibility that the plaintiff intended the
allegation of abuse to fortify an argument for a separation on the
grounds of adultery. Given that the witness depositions respond first
to the allegations of adultery (which usually correspond to the order
of complaints listed in the plaintiff ’s articles and positions), this may
have been the case with Devoine c. Scot. The length of time each
witness spent within the depositions on the adultery as opposed to
the violence supports this hypothesis. Each was much more articulate

21
Medieval husbands were not inclined to sue their wives for separation on the
grounds of adultery. In this study, no cases of this type were discovered. Charles
Donahue, Jr. has suggested to me the possibility that YBI CP. F 110 may be a
case of divorce a mensa et thoro on the grounds of adultery; however, the poor con-
dition of the record makes it difficult to determine its cause with any certainty.
22
For example, see Ruth Mazo Karras, Common Women: Prostitution and Sexuality
in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 31, 42–3, 52–3, 76
and 134.
23
See Shannon McSheffrey,“Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval London
Civic Culture: Governance, Patriarchy and Reputation,” in Conflicted Identities and
Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West Jacqueline Murray (New York: Garland,
1999), 243–78.
24
McSheffrey, 258.
140 chapter four

about Scot’s illicit affairs: naming a variety of mistresses, detailing

the number of children he supported from these unions, and even
going so far as to explain how he or she had first learned about his
extramarital activities. The violent altercation was not an afterthought,
but it was not as central to the depositions as were the affairs.
Probably this was a litigious strategy purposely employed by Margery
and her witnesses on the advice of her proctor. A close examina-
tion of one particular detail from the witness depositions may illu-
minate why, in Margery’s case, it made sense to favour the charge
of adultery. Almost all the witnesses carefully pointed out that some
time ago, Richard’s affairs had become so notorious that he was
brought up on charges before the archdeacon of Northumberland.
In the archdeacon’s court, Richard confessed his sins and received
public condemnation for his actions. Bearing this in mind, when
Margery’s witnesses tendered this information, they probably intended
it to support the verbal contention that Scot’s adulterous behaviour
was well known. Yet, the inclusion of this evidence may be more
significant. In cases of judicial separation where adultery was the
cause, witnesses were not obligatory if the parties had confessed to
their sins.25 Once more before the court, Scot may have been unwill-
ing to confess to his adultery and hoped that all records of his ex
officio case before the archdeacon of Northumberland had been lost
or forgotten. In testifying to his confession, Margery’s witnesses may
have been trying to achieve the same goal, and thus guarantee a
sanctioned separation.
Regardless of whether Margery’s primary intention was to sue for
adultery or cruelty, her case is instructive in the combination of sep-
arate accusations. Her need to claim both would tend to indicate
that Margery, or her proctor, did not judge this level of abuse (or
adultery, for that matter), adequate on its own to fulfil the ecclesi-
astical requirements for separation.

25
R.H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1974), 104.
 the acceptability of marital violence 141

Wyvell c. Venables (1410)

Because the case of Wyvell c. Venables26 was successful, it is capa-

ble of answering some key questions about the kind of strategies lit-
igants needed to adopt in order to succeed in the courts of the
English church. This case demonstrates that Margery de Devoine’s
strategy of inflating the charges against her husband by asserting
both adultery and cruelty was not only astute, but also necessary.
Like Margery, Cecilia Wyvell allegedly suffered physical abuse at the
hands of her husband; when it comes to adultery, however, Cecilia’s
plight was much worse than Margery’s. While Cecilia and Henry’s
marriage sometimes seems even farcical, the exceptional nature of
these allegations may have been exactly what was required in order
to obtain a judicial separation. More important still, because Henry’s
response to the allegations has survived, we can better understand
this case from the defendant’s perspective, and the kinds of decisions
with which he needed to wrestle when faced with allegations of wife
beating.
Cecilia Wyvell presented a formidable case for marital cruelty.
Witnesses for the plaintiff offered two particularly unforgettable
instances of abuse. The first took place seven years before the suit.
Henry beat Cecilia to the ground with his fist, and then punched
her eye with such force that he knocked it from the socket so that
it hung on her cheek by a thread. According to her witnesses, she
would have lost the organ completely had her mother not been pre-
sent to replace it gently in the socket. Some time after this occasion,
her witnesses say that Henry pounded Cecilia to the ground and
beat her with a shortened staff. He then took her by the neck, stran-
gling and suffocating her, so that the neighbours had to rescue Cecilia.
The incident left Cecilia bandaged around her arm and neck for a
period of fifteen days or more. While these were the two most violent
episodes used to illustrate his barbarous behaviour, the consensus, as
we saw also in Margery’s case, seemed to be that Henry’s usual con-
duct towards Cecilia was not much better. Agnes wife of Adam
Shafton of York noted that, “[f ]or ten years. . . . Henry has been
and (still) is a violent, overbearing, adulterous and terrible man . . .
(and) that Henry was and is accustomed at all times when he has

26
YBI CP. F 56, Cecilia Wyvell c. Henry Venables (1410).
142 chapter four

access to Cecilia, his wife, to mistreating Cecilia and greatly beat-

ing her and wounding her enormously without cause.”27 If Agnes is
to be believed, Henry was not successful at hiding his raucous behav-
iour from the community in which he lived. Cecilia, wife of William
Redeness of York, provided a very thorough narrative of the abuse
suffered at Henry’s hands. According to Redeness, Henry’s habit of
greatly beating his wife with a shortened staff had driven Cecilia to
the point of suicide. The record alleges that, as if she had lost her
mind, Cecilia threatened to jump from a window in her highest
chamber or drown herself in the river Ouse, and would have done
so had her mother not intervened.
Having been prepared by Cecilia’s proctor, her witnesses knew
what was expected of them and accordingly produced depositions of
a highly damning nature. Not only did they describe the brutality
and excessive nature of the force, they placed the entire blame for
these incidents on Henry. William Constowe of York swore that
Henry’s near blinding of Cecilia was “without cause,” while other
witnesses referred to Henry’s character in turn as “severe,” “terrible,”
“demented,” and “lunatic.” The same witnesses described Cecilia as
“an honourable, humble, and kind woman.” The inference, clearly,
is that Cecilia had not provoked his anger through disobedience or
shrewishness; any violence directed towards her was not chastisement,
but a manifestation of Henry’s mental instability. In light of the wit-
ness depositions, Henry’s response to the allegations seems overstated
at best. He is self-described as “a decent, mild, sombre, pious, kind,
quiet, peaceful and humble man.”28
Like Margery de Devoine, Cecilia also felt it wise to include alle-
gations of adultery. Her witnesses declared that, over the past four
years, Henry had been involved in a serious relationship with a
woman named Mabota Don, and that Henry had fathered three
illegitimate children by her. He is described by one witness as treat-
ing Mabota “as if she were his wife,” insinuating that his behaviour
was not only in blatant disregard of common and Christian ethics,
it also bordered on bigamy.29 Further, their adultery was well-known

27
YBI CP. F 56/7.
28
YBI CP. F 56/1. This description derives from Henry’s response to Cecilia’s
libel.
29
YBI CP. F 56/7. From the deposition of Alexander Johnson of Newcastle-
upon-Tyne.
 the acceptability of marital violence 143

throughout the dioceses of York, Lichfield, and Coventry and in the

vill of Westchester where he sometimes cohabited with Mabota.
That Cecilia’s suit for judicial separation was successful may come
as no surprise. Perhaps what is most reprehensible about this case
is how much she allegedly endured before applying for separation:
not only general maltreatment, but also one near blinding, one homi-
cide attempt, pseudo-bigamy, and being driven to the brink of sui-
cide. It was only after all of this that she applied for a judicial
separation. Is it possible that the requirements for separation were
so inflexible that such a shameful and scandalous situation was nec-
essary for a successful plea? Or, might these accusations represent
something even more deceitful? It is possible that these charges were
just that: allegations invented to obtain a judicial separation know-
ing that the church could not possibly ignore violence and adultery
of such an exceptional nature.
Bearing this in mind, what exactly was Henry’s defence? In an
otherwise relatively complete file, there are no surviving depositions
from counter-witnesses called on Henry’s behalf. It is possible that
Henry did not appoint any; and yet, with such a powerful case for
the plaintiff, it would have been reckless for Henry not to do so.
Henry’s response to Cecilia’s libel is the only extant evidence to doc-
ument his position. In this, not only does he deny passionately “the
beatings, terrors, and ferocities” imputed in the plaintiff ’s libel and
positions, instead he chooses to characterise his marriage to Cecilia
as both “honourable and praiseworthy.” If there were any problems
in the marriage, he said that Cecilia was entirely to blame. While
he treated her “modestly and amicably,” she was “disobedient, hard-
hearted, horrible, terrible, abominable, unsettled, overly-vocal, and
noisy, and nearly a virago.”30 Forced to live with such an unpleas-
ant woman, it is perhaps even more striking that Henry had made
only two attempts on her life.
Henry’s strategy in pleading this case has a number of obvious
deficiencies. First, it is contradictory to say at once that his marriage
is praiseworthy, and his wife is a virago and difficult to live with.
The marriage could not be healthy if his wife truly lived up to this
depiction. Second, despite his self-fashioned portrait as Henry the
Venerable, he chooses not to address the issue of adultery at all,

30
YBI CP. F 56/1.
144 chapter four

failing even to issue a feckless denial. Court officials may have under-
stood this as a tacit admission to the contrary. Third, the utter fail-
ure of Henry’s response to refer to counter-witnesses who might
support his version of events exposes the possibility that Henry may
have intended to stand his case on his word alone. His defence,
then, consisted of an irreconcilable and farfetched account, reeking
of egotism and derision of the law. Up against five credible witnesses
for the plaintiff, this defence is not only laughable, but piteous. Why
would Henry have opted for such a flawed defence? The most plau-
sible explanation is that Henry wanted to lose. Witnesses for the
plaintiff described a marriage in the process of serious breakdown:
even if their marriage was not as violent or as adulterous as Cecilia’s
witnesses describe it, the reality may not have been far off. After
thirteen long years, maybe Henry, as much as Cecilia, wanted to
call it quits. Cecilia’s case was successful then, not only because of
her own ingenious pleading and visible distress, but because Henry
chose not to defend his case.
Perhaps one of the most important questions is, was Cecilia involved
in Henry’s decision to lose? Such a rash defence may represent col-
lusion between husband and wife. If any part of Cecilia’s narrative
presents an accurate picture of their marriage, then both Cecilia and
Henry were unhappy and probably wished to end their unfortunate
marriage. A case of cruelty brought before the church and poorly
defended would have been a fair solution for both. It is not hard
to imagine, then, that Cecilia and Henry might have schemed to
deceive the courts. Cecilia’s tale of ocular displacement and psy-
chological torment coupled with Henry’s arrogance and incoherence
provided the ideal court case to transform an unhappy marriage into
a very happy separation.

Nesfeld c. Nesfeld (1396)

Of all the cases in this grouping, the records show that only one
case was unsuccessful. Accordingly, Nesfeld c. Nesfeld31 provides a
glimpse into what forms of violence may have remained within the
definition of ‘moderate chastisement.’ Similarly, Thomas Nesfeld’s

31
YBI CP. E 221, Margery wife of Thomas Nesfeld c. Thomas Nesfeld (1396).
 the acceptability of marital violence 145

response to the allegations is a far cry from Henry’s haughty and

dogmatic denial. Through his witnesses, Thomas shifted the blame
for any physical violence to Margery herself. His account of Margery
as a woman of mutinous and debauched character reflect the kind
of expectations of marital violence depicted in the ballads of Chapter
One; these accusations, then, probably represent the response the
courts, and respectable families, expected from a defendant in cases
of cruelty.
The case of Nesfeld c. Nesfeld recounted two very distinct rendi-
tions of the marriage of Margery and Thomas. Margery’s witnesses,
both female, painted a picture of irrational and unprovoked mur-
derous violence. According to Joan White of York,
. . . this witness was present together with Margery Speight, her fellow
witness, and John Semer, servant of Thomas Nesfeld of York in the
same Thomas’ house in the parish of Bishophill, York, on the Saturday
before the feast of St Bartholomew four years ago next within the
darkness of night where and when she saw the said Thomas throw
Margery, his wife to the ground with a club and beat her severely
with the same and afterwards he drew his baslard [dagger] and gravely
wounded her in the arm and broke the bone of that arm, commonly
called ‘le Spelbon’ and he would then have killed her that night if he
had not been prevented by this witness, the said Margery, her fellow
witness, and John Semer, then servant of the same Thomas. Afterwards,
for a week or two, as this witness believes, when the same Margery,
wife of the same Thomas, was somewhat healed and restored, she
went away from Thomas, her husband, because she dared not stay
longer with him for fear of death . . .32
Both Joan White and Margery Speight, the other witness for the
plaintiff whose story mirrors that of her co-deponent, constructed
their testimonies carefully, omitting entirely the context of the abuse
in order to accentuate the husband’s irrationality. If they had been
the only witnesses for this case, Margery Nesfeld might have been
more fortunate in her suit. However, Thomas provided two counter-
witnesses. Richard Hanley of York appeared merely as a character
witness for the case. He declared that he had known Thomas for
twenty years, and during that time, he had never seen or heard that
Thomas assaulted Margery.33 Hanley’s inclusion in this suit may seem

32
YBI CP. E 221.
33
YBI CP. E 221/1.
146 chapter four

incongruous, given that he appeared as one of only two counter-

witnesses and he knew nothing about the alleged altercation. Still,
Richard Hanley was a sixty-year-old male. In a society that equated
masculinity and age with authority and wisdom, his testimony must
have carried a great deal of weight, despite his unsatisfactory knowl-
edge of the events. Otherwise, Thomas would not have bothered to
include him. This left one actual counter-witness, John Semer,
Thomas’s servant at the time of the event. John recounted the same
violent exchange but from an entirely different viewpoint than that
of the witnesses for the plaintiff. He declared that,
four years ago the said Margery left her home in the parish of Bishophill
and went to a house, the which this witness does not remember, in
the city of York without and contrary to the said Thomas, her hus-
band’s mandate and precept, and stayed there from noon of that day
until the darkness of night. When she returned to the house shared
by the said Thomas and the said Margery his wife, Thomas asked
why she had left her home against his will and precept. She replied
that she wished to go where she would against the will of the same
Thomas her husband, and then Thomas, seeing Margery’s rebellion,
struck her with his fist in order to chastise her.34
By adding a context to the abuse, John’s version produces a much
different story. Margery is no longer the deplorable victim of sense-
less abuse, but a disobedient and potentially adulterous wife requir-
ing moral correction by her husband. His account also reduced
significantly the degree of violence. John’s version of the events
included no weapons, no broken bones, no recovery period. He went
on to say that
he was present one day, the which he does not remember, around the
feast of the nativity of St John the Baptist four years ago in the afore-
said house when he heard the said Margery swear and say to Thomas
her husband that she could kill him in bed at night if she wanted,
which same Thomas, roused by anger, wanted to strike her with his
fist. She immediately fled outside the door into the highway crying,
wailing, weeping, and publicly exclaiming that Thomas, her husband,
wanted to kill her.35

34
YBI CP. E 221/1.
35
YBI CP. E 221/1.
 the acceptability of marital violence 147

In John’s version, if there is any victim in this marriage, it is Thomas,

whose unruly wife has a history of making false accusations against
him, subtly insinuating that this accusation may, also, be false, and
has even threatened his life. John concluded his testimony with the
final damning statement that he never witnessed any violent behav-
iour towards Margery that was not provoked.36 The court ruled
against Margery, and she was required to stay married to Thomas.
Commenting on the reason why Margery’s suit was unsuccessful,
P.J.P. Goldberg has argued that biology is responsible. He remarks
“[s]ince Margery brought two female deponents to testify to the same
events, whereas her husband had only one such (male) deponent and
another (male) character witness, it is hard not to conclude that the
court was prejudiced against the testimony of women.”37 This ver-
dict corresponds with canonical requirements. Canonists advocated
a set series of rules and standards regarding the acceptability of tes-
timony to which judges were expected to adhere. Tancred’s Ordo
notes, “[i]f the witnesses on one side conflict with those on the other,
then the judge ought to follow those who are most trustworthy—
the freeborn rather than the freedman, the older rather than the
younger, the man of more honorable estate rather than the inferior,
the noble rather than the ignoble, the man rather than the woman.”38
Despite Tancred’s assertions, women did appear frequently as witnesses
in cases of marital litigation, a fact that would suggest their testimony
was not without value, and maybe even especially appropriate.39 In
his demographic study of fourteenth-century cause papers involving
matrimony, Frederik Pedersen notes that of the 565 gender-identifiable
witnesses, 389 were men, 175 were women.40 While these levels do
not prove equal representation, the figures reveal a high level of

36
YBI CP. E 221/1.
37
P.J.P. Goldberg, “Debate: Fiction in the archives: the York cause papers as a
source for later medieval social history,” Continuity and Change 12 (1997): 445.
38
As cited and translated by Charles Donahue, Jr. “Proof by Witnesses in the
Church Courts of Medieval England: An Imperfect Reception of the Learned Law,”
in On the Laws and Customs of England. Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Thorne, ed. Morris
S. Arnold, et al. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 131.
39
Donahue, 130.
40
Frederik Pedersen, “Demography in the archives: social and geographical fac-
tors in fourteenth-century York cause paper marriage litigation,” Continuity and Change
10 (1995): 420.
148 chapter four

female participation as witnesses, at a ratio of 1:2.22 female to male

witnesses. This figure is considerably greater than female participation
in the church courts in other kinds of litigation, and dramatically
higher than female participation in the legal process of the king’s
courts. These figures are fairly consistent with the ratio of male to
female participation as witnesses in cases of divorce a mensa et thoro
at 1:2.45. While these figures demonstrate a marked predisposition
for male witnesses, female witnesses played no small part. Consequently,
the fact that the only case of separation known to be unsuccessful
had only female witnesses for the plaintiff, then, is simply not sub-
stantial enough without further gender break-down of all matrimo-
nial cases, both successful and otherwise, in order to discern any
particular gender bias.
Alternative explanations for the court’s sentence are also possible.
John’s position as servant in the Nesfeld household at the time of
the violent exchange may have privileged his testimony. The court
may have perceived John Semer as being uniquely qualified to com-
ment on Thomas and Margery’s relationship because he was a mem-
ber of the Nesfeld familia and, as Joan White’s testimony quoted
above demonstrates, his position meant that he was privy to these
altercations. What Thomas lacked in quantity of witnesses, then, he
compensated with quality. A final possibility is that Margery’s case
failed to meet the canonical requirements for proof. Because Margery
was the plaintiff, she shouldered the burden of proof. The law required
her to produce two credible witnesses to convince the judge of her
argument. The court bore no such expectations for Thomas. He did
not need to establish his case affirmatively by two witnesses. All he
needed to do was cast doubt on the testimony of Margery’s witnesses.
Thomas also responded personally to the allegations of abuse
against him, and his version of events played upon John Semer’s
moralised account. In his positions, he argued that Margery’s rebel-
lion earned his actions, and that his “castigation,” not “beating,”
had been “lawful” and “honest” rather than “excessive” or “cruel.”
He intended his behaviour only to reduce Margery’s errors, as a
good husband should. He went on to say “he was never harsh or
cruel to any woman, and that he never engaged in any illicit beat-
ings of his wife.”41

41
YBI CP. E 221/2.
 the acceptability of marital violence 149

Thomas’s reinterpretation of the relationship, fortified by John

Semer’s testimony, drastically changes the perspective on the cause
of violence within this marriage; nevertheless, his representation of
the union is essentially no different than that of Margery’s two close
friends. Whether Margery was innocent victim or murderous shrew,
his response still presents the marriage both as a dangerous, unhappy
union. Regardless, the court chose to enforce the marriage. Two
instances of the court held against Margery and supported the mar-
riage. Thomas was required to give surety that he would not mis-
treat Margery in the future, a detail that argues strongly that the
court accepted Margery’s story (at least, in part). When she tried to
appeal the case to the Holy See, however, the court official refused
to refer it. Margery could have continued to pursue the case in
Rome without the court’s protection, but there is no evidence to
suggest that she did so.
The modern observer, accustomed to a world where divorce is
commonplace, cannot help but ask, if the court had reason to sus-
pect that Margery and Thomas’s marriage was dangerous why uphold
it? In marital litigation the church courts assumed the role of “a
rather heavy-handed marriage counsellor”: it was their intention to
keep the marriage together whenever possible.42 Still, in the case of
Margery and Thomas, the court seems to be inviting future ani-
mosity or even fatality, if we are to believe any of the testimonies
presented. That, however, may be the clue. Margery and Thomas
had been married for more than ten years. How could a marriage
of that length produce only three witnesses qualified to speak to the
rocky nature of the relationship? In the intense existence of medieval
society, it is difficult to imagine that Margery and Thomas managed
successfully to hide their domestic squabbles from their neighbours.
Furthermore, each witness was able to testify to only one incident
of actual, rather than threatened, violence. Margery de Devoine pre-
sented seven witnesses on her behalf, Cecilia Wyvell five. Both these
plaintiffs submitted additional evidence of marital breakdown outside
of the one memorable occurrence of domestic violence in order to
illustrate a pattern of abuse rather than an isolated instance. The
Nesfelds’ three eyewitnesses with such opposing views and only one
violent incident between them likely was not ample evidence to

42
Helmholz, 101.
150 chapter four

convince the court that this was anything more than a trumped up
case of marital disharmony. The failure of this suit, then, tells us
less about the church’s definition of acceptable limits of spousal abuse
than about the strict legal requirements for manipulating the sacra-
ments. Nevertheless, John Semer’s account does hint at traditional
justifications of marital violence. To characterise assault as mere chas-
tisement for disobedience and marital rebellion suggests that John
Semer’s assumptions were built on a heritage of ideas about gender
roles in marriage. Whether the church agreed or not, John Semer
felt that Margery’s free will and independent mind transgressed gen-
der norms and justified violent retribution.

Munkton c. Huntington (1345–6)

The case of Munkton c. Huntington43 not only uncovers degrees of

acceptable violence, it also addresses an earlier query: why plaintiffs
did not plead cases of abuse merely as precontracts in order to dis-
solve the union. The evidence of this case would seem to argue that
the choice might have been more difficult than we can imagine.
This case provides abundant evidence of the legal options litigants
had available to them. Over the course of the period 1345–46, Simon
Munkton pled two suits for the restoration of conjugal rights, and
even turned to the royal courts with a plea of ravishment; Agnes
Huntington began as a defendant in a case for the restitution of
rights, then became a plaintiff in an application for a judicial sepa-
ration, but ended up asking the court for an annulment. The actions
of both litigants remind us that medieval England was a highly liti-
gious society; individuals were prepared to turn to whatever court
they believed might sympathise best with their plight, as well as use
whatever pleading strategy might best meet their needs.44

43
YBI CP. E 248, Simon Munkton c. Agnes Huntington (1345–6). For a fasci-
nating, in-depth discussion of this case, see Frederik Pedersen, “‘Romeo and Juliet
of Stonegate’: a medieval marriage in crisis,” (York: Borthwick Paper no. 87, 1995);
repr. as chapter two in Marriage Disputes in Medieval England.
44
The resourcefulness of litigants has been explored best by Daniel Klerman,
“Jurisdictional Competition and the Evolution of the Common Law: An Hypothesis,”
in Boundaries of the Law: Geography, Gender and Jurisdiction in Medieval and Early Modern
Europe, ed. Anthony Musson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 149–68.
 the acceptability of marital violence 151

Agnes Huntington and Simon Munkton married for love rather

than money, but money was their downfall. In the autumn of 1345,
Agnes found herself under attack from her husband and evicted from
the conjugal home after a passionate dispute between the two in
which Agnes staunchly refused to consent to a sale of lands she had
received from her father.45 Fearing that Agnes might take legal action
against him, Simon decided that the best line of attack was, in fact,
to beat her to it by filing a suit with the court of the Dean of the
Christianity of York claiming spousal abandonment without just cause.
In response to his action for a restoration of conjugal rights, Agnes
argued that, because of Simon’s cruelty and out of fear for her own
safety, she was incapable of residing with her husband, and in fact
desired a separation from him in order to put as much distance
between them as she was able. By October of 1345, the Dean’s
court was uncertain about how to proceed with the case, whether
to treat it as a correctional matter and order Agnes to return home
to her husband; or, instead, to treat it as a civil action, and request
Agnes to sue a case of divorce a mensa et thoro. To resolve the prob-
lem, the archbishop of York himself intervened in the case and
brought it before his audience court for a more extensive inquiry
into the state of their marriage. By the end of February 1346, the
archbishop had made up his mind on the matter and decided that
Agnes had made enough of a case to proceed as a civil action. The
charges of cruelty were renewed and the case proceeded as an appli-
cation for separation by Agnes on the grounds of cruelty.
At the archbishop’s court, both sides presented very different ver-
sions of the assault. According to Agnes, Simon beat her “so much
that blood poured out both by her nostrils and ears.”46 She was in
such a deplorable condition that Simon thought she had died dur-
ing the beating. He fled the scene of the crime and was about to
take refuge in the local church, presumably with the goal of claim-
ing sanctuary, when it occurred to him to have someone look in on

45
Simon’s anger may have arisen from the fact that he had anticipated her forth-
coming consent and already arranged the transfer of the lands to the steward of
Lord Ralph Neville. Her refusal, then, may have placed him in a difficult situa-
tion. See the depositions of William Joveby, Nicholas Fraunceys and John Snaweshill
in YBI CP. E 248/34, who all confirmed the transfer of land to Lord Nevill.
Moreover, many of Agnes’s witnesses confirmed that Agnes was unwilling to endorse
Simon’s use of her wealth. See CP. E 248/12 and 13.
46
YBI CP. E 248/33.
152 chapter four

his wife. Simon asked his neighbour, Nicholas Fraunceys, to stop in

at his home and make sure Agnes was still alive. Nicholas and another
man carted the wounded Agnes, battered and bleeding, to the home
of another neighbour, John Snaweshill, where she might be safe from
her husband’s rage. Simon returned home to the happy news that
he was not a felon, and then visited Agnes long enough to tell her
to seek permanent accommodation elsewhere. In her positions, Agnes
stated that this attempt on her life had occurred “without reason-
able cause” and that, as she saw it, his beating had been both
“immoderate” and “excessive.”47 Employing the verbal formula of a
separation suit, she decried that “because of the likely threat of death
. . . and because of the pain of her body and the excessive cruelty
committed against her by the said Simon,” she did not dare remain
in a marriage with this man.48
Simon’s defence was filled with images of Eve. He explained that
an argument had arisen between them because “Agnes kept com-
pany with certain men in suspect places against the will and prohi-
bition of the said Simon, the said Agnes’ husband. And she conducted
herself in a suspect manner in several ways against the said Simon
and irreverently spoke disgraceful words against the said Simon.”49
From his perspective, Simon had no choice but to castigate Agnes
for her unruly behaviour. Still, he argued that his reprimand was
“without danger of death or mutilation of any limb, [but] lightly as
is permitted by law.”50 He then produced witnesses to dispel the
depiction of him as a money-hungry abuser. Picking up where Simon
left off, his witnesses disparaged Agnes as an adulteress. She had not
only associated with “suspect men” and conducted herself in a “sus-
pect manner,” but she had already been presented at court and done
public penance for an earlier affair with a squire named William
Morthyng, providing solid proof of her lewd and immoral ways. On
this particular evening, when Simon confronted her about her con-
duct, she answered him both “disgracefully” and “irreverently,” so
that Simon “gave her a slap on the ear with his fist, a gentle one
though . . . and in order to castigate and not violently.”51

47
YBI CP. E 248/26.
48
YBI CP. E 248/40.
49
YBI CP. E 248/31.
50
YBI CP. E 248/31.
51
YBI CP. E 248/30.
 the acceptability of marital violence 153

In light of Devoine c. Scot and the church’s “clean-hands rule,”

Simon’s strategy becomes clearer. Not only was he justifying his vio-
lent behaviour as moral discipline, and thus depicting himself as the
upright, responsible husband, he was also attempting to negate her
claim to a divorce a mensa et thoro. If an adulterous wife cannot
demand separation because of her husband’s adultery, and if the
church equated adultery and cruelty as grounds for separation, why
should the court permit an adulterous wife to divorce a cruel husband?
If his witnesses had been present at Agnes’s public penance for her
incontinence, their testimony would have been as powerful as Agnes’s
own confession.
Whether Simon and his witnesses were being truthful in their
account of Agnes’s extramarital dalliances or this was merely a ploy
to manipulate the legal system, their construction of these events is
revealing. To interpret a beating of the intensity described by Simon
and his witnesses as castigations for disobedience and sexual misconduct
is an indication that the church would have found the occasional
slap or punch by a husband appropriate in the name of moral cor-
rection. After all, the charges of immorality cast against Agnes imply
that she was in good need of correction. Simon’s desperation to
diminish Agnes’s account, however, demonstrates that her version of
the events comes dangerously close to the ecclesiastical definition of
excessive violence.
With such conflicting views and severe allegations, the court needed
time to untangle the events. In order to save Agnes from any undue
force, the archbishop granted her permission to live apart from her
husband while the court reached a decision, and thus she resumed
residence with her uncle, William Huntington, in Petergate.52 Simon
soon tracked her down and exploited the delay as an opportunity
for an out-of-court settlement by trying to beat Agnes into submission.
According to neighbour Thomas Esoby, witness for the plaintiff, he
saw Simon

52
The ex officio records of the late medieval court of Canterbury suggest that the
courts frequently ordered the sequestration of endangered wives during matrimo-
nial litigation. For example, the Canterbury act books for the years 1463 to 1505
include nine examples, see Y.1.6, fo. 21; Y.1.15, fos 160 and 201; Y.1.16, fo. 253;
Y.1.17, fo. 13; Y.1.19 in which the folios are unnumbered but the cases are those
of Ralph Huddingfeld of Smorden and his wife Amice Humfrey, and Lodan of
Betrysden and his wife Elisabeth Barker; and finally, Y.2.2, fos 37 and 110.
154 chapter four

throw Agnes . . . to the ground and in a very smelly place . . . . and lie
upon her stomach. But whether Simon hit the said Agnes then he
does not know for certain . . . . And while they, Simon and Agnes, were
lying there, John de Midelton, a tailor living in the same neighbour-
hood, came and took the same Simon by his hood and pulled him to
himself away from the stomach of the said Agnes . . . Indeed, this Simon
then drew out his knife but did not stab anyone with it, so far as this
witness knows.53
Another witness for the plaintiff, Julianne de Aldeburgh, described
just how brutal the beating actually was. She remarked how “she
saw the said Simon . . . beat Agnes with his fists and feet so that
afterwards she lay for a period of fifteen days in her bed and was
not able to leave during that period of time because of the beat-
ing.”54 Simon’s effort got him no closer to reconciliation, nor had
he convinced Agnes to grant him permission to sell her father’s lands.
None the less, Simon was astute enough to recognise the implica-
tions of his failed settlement on Agnes’s request for separation. In
order to counteract the damage, Simon sent in his own witnesses to
defend his account of the confrontation. Both John de Midelton of
York and his wife Agnes appeared for the defendant. Their inter-
pretation of the episode was much tamer than either Thomas’s or
Joan’s had been. They explained that Simon intended merely to
meet with Agnes and persuade her to come home. The encounter
did not go as planned; Simon became physically abusive, but not to
the extent outlined by the witnesses for the plaintiff. John was obliged
to pull Simon off Agnes, but he did not see any knife, and Agnes
avoided any serious harm. In fact, John argued that Simon and
Agnes reunited some time after the encounter. He saw them sit
together, eating and drinking, and “kiss each other peaceably, vol-
untarily and without fear”; he also commented how Simon “treated
[her] kindly.”55 Only Simon’s witnesses mention this rapprochement
after the event. It is not difficult to imagine why they included this
detail. Any reconciliation subsequent to the act of cruelty or adul-
tery barred a separation.56 In fact, any settlement after a grant of
separation by the church courts also lifted the grant. A wife cannot
forgive her husband’s sins and then use those same sins against him

53
YBI CP. E 248/26c.
54
YBI CP. E 248/26c.
55
YBI CP. E 248/55.
56
Helmholz, 100.
 the acceptability of marital violence 155

when convenient. With this information, Simon may have achieved

another minor victory in the courtroom.
At about this time, Simon decided to pursue his cause simultaneously
in both the ecclesiastical and royal courts. Simon requested a com-
mission of oyer and terminer to look into the ravishment of his wife
by Agnes’s uncle William, Richard de Grymesby and others.57 The
enrolment in the Calendar of Patent Rolls notes specifically that Simon
was concerned chiefly with the loss of goods taken with Agnes and
detained from him still. It was not uncommon for husbands whose
wives had deserted them to plead a suit of abduction in the king’s
court. Abductions of this nature were most likely consensual; as is
the case with Agnes Huntington, the wives were not only willing to
leave, but probably orchestrated the entire event.58 The goal of such
a suit was economic: husbands asked only for reparation for the loss
of goods taken during the ‘abduction.’ In many respects, a favourable
response from the royal courts to his request might have resolved
his problems and made any further suit in the ecclesiastical courts
unnecessary. Although the Calendar does not offer any hint to the
court’s decision in this suit, Simon’s continued appearances in the
ecclesiastical court points to the possibility that royal justice may
have been awaiting the outcome of the ecclesiastical suit before
proceeding in the king’s courts.
Simon was still not ready to give up the possibility of an out-of-
court settlement. Aided by a male acquaintance, Robert Tayergrave,
Simon physically abducted Agnes from a Corpus Christi procession
held within the precinct of York Minster. While Agnes was not hurt
in the process, the seizure was against her will and accompanied by
physical restraint. Gervase of Rawcliffe testified that Simon and
Robert carried Agnes away from the parade with Simon holding
Agnes by the head, Robert by her feet. Agnes finally encouraged
them to let her walk and they discussed the issue rationally, although
Simon had no success in persuading his wife to return. In the end,
Agnes emerged from this incident uninjured, but the incident fur-
ther tarnished Simon’s credibility.

57
CPR, vii.102.
58
Sue Sheridan Walker, “Punishing Convicted Ravishers: Statutory Strictures and
Actual Practise in Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century England,” Journal of Medieval
History 13 (1987): 239.
156 chapter four

Despite the renewed violence, Agnes chose this point in the liti-
gation to change her tactic. In May 1346 Agnes repeated earlier
allegations that her marriage to Simon was, in fact, invalid because
of a precontract with John de Bristol, a former lover. She then pro-
ceeded with her case as an action for divorce a vinculo, an annul-
ment, on the grounds of precontract.59 Soon after, Simon renewed
his petition for restitution of conjugal rights, although the court does
not appear to have addressed it with much seriousness.
Agnes’s decision to change tactics, despite what appears to be a
reasonably solid case involving multiple instances of abuse, implies
that she lacked assurance in her chances. Nevertheless, the story of
her precontract was plausible and had the added benefit of official
documentation. In February 1339 Agnes and John, the son of a suc-
cessful Yorkshire businessman, decided to marry despite vocal protests
from Agnes’s parents who, for reasons unknown, had not taken a
liking to the young man. Their disapproval was so vehement that
the couple had difficulty in finding people willing to witness their
exchange of vows. One servant of the household, Margaret Foxholes,
was so determined to avoid a conflict of loyalties between Agnes and
her parents that she ran from the exchange to prevent being called
into court as a witness.60 Because of the notoriety of their relation-
ship, it was not long before Agnes and John had to defend their
marriage publicly, when they found themselves summoned before
the tribunal of the Dean of the Christianity of York. At this meet-
ing, John and Agnes once again attempted to persuade Agnes’s par-
ents to agree to the marriage, but their approval was not forthcoming.

59
Agnes first brought up the issue of precontract with John de Bristol in response
to Simon’s original action for a restitution of conjugal rights. However, her claim
was the last in a list of allegations discussing Simon’s violent behaviour, which would
seem to suggest that a separation from Simon was her primary concern. Considering
mention of precontract did not appear again until May of the following year, the
pattern of the case and the evidence brought forward by Agnes’s witnesses suggest
that she intended to sue for a judicial separation and that she simply changed her
mind in May of 1346. Frederik Pedersen does not agree with this conclusion. His
assessment of this situation is that Agnes may have been suing for precontract all
along. If this were the case, however, Agnes would not have required any witnesses
to the violence of her marriage with Simon. This detail would have been extrane-
ous and inappropriate. To have expended this much time and money on witnesses
to the abuse suggests that Agnes chose to deviate from her original course and
instead sue for precontract once she was no longer certain that she had a solid
case of abuse. See Pedersen, Romeo and Juliet, 11.
60
YBI CP. E 248/23.
 the acceptability of marital violence 157

In the end, the youthful Agnes of 1339 succumbed to the wishes of

her parents and reported to the tribunal that the contract had been
conditional on her parents’ consent, and thus the marriage was not
valid. By 1346, however, a much wiser and mature Agnes was more
prepared to defend this marriage.
Simon’s response to Agnes’s claim of precontract was somewhat
less consistent. He combined two distinct tactics. First, he presented
witnesses who claimed that Agnes and John’s contract had indeed
been conditional upon the consent of her parents and that, before
Simon and Agnes decided to marry, the Dean of the Christianity of
York had declared them free to marry whomever they wanted.61 Less
convincingly, Simon also argued that his exchange of vows with
Agnes had taken place prior to her vows with John de Bristol.62 One
deponent even went so far as to describe an exchange of present
consent between the two reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. John Marschall
notes that the exchange took place in the garden at the home of
Agnes’s father, with Agnes standing in the window of her room while
Simon remained in the garden below:
and because the said window was so far from the said garden that
the said Simon and Agnes could not touch each other with their hands,
the said Agnes extended her hand and kissed it. Which hand she
extended as far as she could towards the said Simon standing in the
said garden as the witness says and the said Simon immediately kissed
his own hand and reached as far as he could upwards by reaching
above towards the said window so that the extension of his arm could
replace a kiss by the said Simon just like the extension of the said
Agnes’s arm was made to Simon below as a sign of a kiss given to
the said Simon . . .63
Whether Marschall’s account of the romantic nature of the couple’s
exchange was ample to move the archbishop, or merely caused him
to give up entirely will have to remain a mystery, since this lengthy
file concludes with the depositions that accompany the petition for
annulment. The court may have sided with Simon in light of the
numerous discrepancies highlighted by Simon in Agnes’s case of pre-
contract. Not only did Simon refute the allegations of precontract,
bringing to light the court records in which Agnes admitted that she

61
YBI CP. E 248/43; CP. E 248/44.
62
YBI CP. E 248/18.
63
YBI CP. E 248/18.
158 chapter four

was not actually married to John of Bristol, but he adopted a shrewd

strategy of discrediting her witnesses on technical grounds.
If an annulment was what Agnes wanted, one has to wonder why
this was not her first choice for prosecution? One possible explana-
tion is that Agnes was hesitant to resume her prior union with John,
or that John was the reluctant party, a very plausible conclusion in
light of his total absence from the proceedings. Yet, in the end, she
felt marriage to an old boyfriend was a more trustworthy option
than a judicial separation on the grounds of cruelty. Agnes’s legal
strategy indicates that she herself was not confident that two brutal
beatings and abduction were sufficient to meet the ecclesiastical
definition of cruelty. This is difficult to imagine. While her initial
complaint might seem inadequate in light of Simon’s allegations of
sexual misconduct and their ensuing reconciliation, his ceaseless hos-
tility and disregard for his wife’s safety should have corroded his
defence. It is also possible that the question of who was at fault in
each suit determined Agnes’s decision to change her position. In a
case of judicial separation, her attempts to place the blame squarely
on her husband’s shoulders may not have been as successful as she
had hoped; in a case of precontract, however, the sin was entirely
her own. The issue of who is more blameworthy, in a judicial set-
ting, is all about control. In the request for judicial separation, Simon’s
re-interpretations and cross-allegations might counter too easily Agnes’s
upper hand. With a case of precontract, Agnes had full control. Her
own confession was her best weapon. In shifting the blame from
Simon to herself, then, Agnes was taking charge of the direction in
which the case proceeded.

Benson c. Benson (1448)

Of all the cases of divorce a mensa et thoro that came before the York
consistory court, the case of Benson c. Benson64 was probably the
least violent and the most incomplete. Only the plaintiff’s positions
and the corresponding witness depositions have survived and neither
are in particularly good condition. Despite the poor documentation,
the details of the case are very instructive, and offer some of the

64
YBI CP. F 235, Agnes Benson c. Peter Benson (1448).
 the acceptability of marital violence 159

clearest evidence to suggest that the courts, as well as the people,

of medieval England may have defended an expanded definition of
cruelty.
According to the plaintiff, Agnes and Peter Benson had been mar-
ried six years before their suit in the parish of St Margaret in
Walmgate. None the less, within a very short period, their relation-
ship had broken down to the point where Agnes claimed that Peter
had tried to kill her, and would have done so had her witnesses not
intervened. Because of his cruelty and out of fear for her life, she
dared not live with him, implying once again that she had separated
from her husband since the brutal episode. The first witness for the
plaintiff, Agnes, wife of Robert Helagh of York, agreed heartily with
the plaintiff ’s contention. According to the witness, four or five years
earlier, Peter initiated a violent encounter that caused Agnes to with-
draw from her home. While at the home of the Helaghs with the
couple and their daughter, Peter denounced his wife as having been
sexually incontinent. When Agnes denied Peter’s accusation, he called
her “a liar” and “a false whore.”65 He then drew his knife intend-
ing to strike her with it, and would have done so if the witness’s
husband and daughter had not stepped in. With their assistance,
Agnes was able to escape from the home unscathed. Robert Helagh,
husband to the first witness, also appeared in court to support Agnes
Benson’s application for separation. His story is generally consistent
with that recounted by his wife. The main difference between the
two is Robert’s account of Peter’s verbal tirade. Not only did Peter
indulge in a spate of name-calling, but also Robert relates how Peter
continued to employ further “indecent words” before attempting to
stab his wife.66 Robert also agreed that Agnes had withdrawn justly
from her husband and did not dare live with him out of fear for
her life.
With so little evidence, no counter-witnesses and no response from
the defendant, it is difficult to speculate how this case might have
concluded. Yet, it contributes in an important way to our under-
standing of popular, if not ecclesiastical, interpretations of abuse. To
say that Peter had accused his wife of adultery places the violent
episode within context and even taints the defendant’s character as

65
YBI CP. F 235/2.
66
YBI CP. F 235/2.
160 chapter four

one who engages so casually in slander. The violent episode should

have been sufficient to explain the circumstances surrounding the
abuse and illuminate the uncaring and litigious nature of the defen-
dant. Why, then, include the actual slanderous statements and con-
tinue further to say that he used indecent words? Perhaps this was
merely for the purpose of accuracy, to convey the full extent and
manifestation of his rage. Equally likely is the possibility that these
statements were included because the witnesses themselves saw them
as evidence of abuse. In her examination of the more plentiful six-
teenth- and seventeenth-century cases of divorce a mensa et thoro, Laura
Gowing observes that when plaintiffs and witnesses recounted tales
of marital disharmony their definition of what entailed abuse was
quite broad, encompassing economic, mental and verbal cruelty in
addition to physical violence.67 This expanded definition of saevitia
helped to convey the extent of the violence, even if it did not con-
form to the church’s understanding of the term. Without the insen-
sitive slurs of her reputation and Peter’s “severe expression,” officials
might have interpreted this case as an isolated incident of rage, eas-
ily explained away by cheap drink. However, aspersions of Agnes’s
sexual honesty slung about in the home of their neighbours paint
the defendant as hot-headed, careless of his wife’s reputation and
bordering on neurotic. Such verbal abuse, when combined with an
attempted stabbing, characterises this as a deeply troubled marriage.
The case of Benson c. Benson is not the only case in which the
definition of abuse transcends the physical. To return briefly to the
case of Wyvell c. Venables, Cecilia Redeness of York, witness for
the plaintiff, was graphic and pointed in her description of the beat-
ings and physical abuse suffered by Cecilia Wyvell. She meticulously
recounted two of the most violent episodes mentioned elsewhere; in
the midst of these accounts, she replayed the scene of a desperate
Cecilia, driven to suicide attempts by Henry’s incessant abuse. Cecilia’s
mental instability was not essential to the legal narrative. Nevertheless,
the witness chose to incorporate it into her story. Her inclusion of
this incident and her failure to distinguish it in any way from the
acts of violence substantiates that the witness perceived the mental
abuse not as colouring, but as a manifestation of cruelty, and may
even have equated it with the physical torment inflicted upon Cecilia
by Henry. Bearing in mind that a court proctor coached all depositions,

67
Gowing, 210.
 the acceptability of marital violence 161

it may not have been merely the witness who was inclined to interpret
evidence of mental abuse as intemperate cruelty, but also the courts.

Ireby c. Lonesdale (1509)

The final case confirms that abuse was more than just physical in
medieval perceptions. In Ireby c. Lonesdale economics played a cen-
tral role in the dispute.68 Ireby’s plea forces us to ask a number of
key questions about married women’s property rights in the event
of a separation: might a separated wife confidently expect to restrict
her husband’s access to property that she had brought to the mar-
riage? Upon separation, how did spouses divide marital property?
While this case does not provide all the answers to these questions,
it brings us much closer to an understanding of what contemporary
attitudes might have been. Maybe even more important still, this
case illuminates the viewpoint of medieval men on the issue of gov-
ernance: depositions by Joan’s witnesses hint that Robert Lonesdale’s
inability to govern his own behaviour might have made him less of
a man.
Witnesses for the plaintiff in the case of Ireby c. Lonesdale recount
the tale of a marriage gone sadly astray. Five of the seven witnesses
recount the most impressive incident of abuse as having taken place
some time ago, when Robert Lonesdale, with “a flushed expression
on his face,” struck his wife Joan on the cheek and the eye with
such force that her eye hung defective on her cheek and she was
wounded gravely.69 This was not the only beating endured by Joan
at the hands of her husband. Joan Fleschawer of York, servant to
the couple during their marriage, remembered a time when Robert
beat his wife so that “he broke her head” while they sat together
at the table. Over a year later, on a date the witness could not
recall, Robert was so determined to kill his wife that the witness and
a fellow servant, Alice, relative of Robert, stepped in to prevent him.

68
YBI CP. G 35, Joan Ireby c. Robert Lonesdale (1509).
69
Five of the seven witnesses for the plaintiff mention this beating, however, only
John Potter of York remarks on how her eye hung defective on her cheek. This
detail has been included owing to its relevance in light of the other abuse cases
related in this chapter, and is discussed further on in greater detail. All of the depo-
sitions of the witnesses for the plaintiff appear on the same membrane, YBI CP.
G 35/1.
162 chapter four

They were not able to curtail Robert’s beating before Joan suffered
a broken arm and shinbone. On this occasion, Robert was required
to find sureties to ensure that he would not repeat his performance.
Joan, wife of John Potter of York, remembered an instance when
Robert flaunted a dagger and attempted to kill his wife with it;
William Scorburgh Potter of York recalled an episode in which
Robert threw his wife on a bed and then attacked her with a knife.
Her husband’s unpredictable and alarming conduct forced Joan to
withdraw from his home. As all the witnesses agreed, “Joan did not
dare live with her husband out of fear for her life or mutilation of
her body” and for this Robert was entirely at fault: Joan had been
nothing but “obedient,” while Robert behaved harshly.
What is perhaps most remarkable about the witness depositions
in this case is how they contextualise the violence. Abstract narrative
was the strategy adopted by most witnesses for the plaintiff: exclu-
sive focus on the abuse to the point of neglecting the context entirely.
The case of Nesfeld c. Nesfeld demonstrates why this was such a
potent and effective tactic. On the one hand, Margery’s two female
friends described senseless violence from a barbarous man; Thomas’s
servant, on the other hand, transformed the narrative altogether by
adding a framework to the discussion. His account of the events
leading up to the altercation and other disputes between the two
emphasise mutual abuse provoked by a rebellious shrew. Many of
the other cases of domestic violence recounted only from the perspective
of the plaintiff probably hide similar details. In Ireby c. Lonesdale,
however, the approach espoused by Joan’s witnesses is wholly different.
In fact, her witnesses embrace context. According to witnesses for
the plaintiff, money is the explanation for the difficulties with Joan
and Robert’s marriage. When Robert leaned across their table to
strike his wife on the head and seriously wound her, it was because
Joan had lent money to a friend, Petronella Russell of Goodramgate,
without consulting her husband. This is an important detail. Its inclu-
sion by a witness for the plaintiff suggests that the witness, and prob-
ably the plaintiff ’s proctor, felt the plaintiff was within her rights to
lend a sum of money to a friend. In medieval England, married
women had few property rights. By law, a married woman was not
permitted to sell, transfer or exchange property without her husband’s
consent; nor did the common law permit a wife to make a will with-
out her husband’s approval. The case of Ireby c. Lonesdale brings
the issue of married women’s property to the forefront and proposes
 the acceptability of marital violence 163

a distinction between theory and practice. Legally, Joan may not

have been entitled to lend money without her husband’s agreement,
but this witness seems to have believed that it was within her rights.
Had a witness for the defendant brought forward this detail, the
interpretation would have been vastly different.
For a case of divorce on the grounds of cruelty, Joan Ireby’s wit-
nesses pass far more time on the issue of money than one might
anticipate. According to witnesses for the plaintiff, before her marriage
to Robert, Joan’s lands and tenements were worth twelve marks a
year, her goods forty pounds. Robert had since taken full possession
of his wife’s property, and, failing to obtain his wife’s permission, he
had sold all her goods, with the exception of some items of clothing,
and refused her access to the profits. When Joan left Robert, she
also left behind financial stability. Since then, she had become so
destitute that she had to borrow money in order to bring her case
before the archbishop. What is probably most striking about Joan’s
descent into poverty is the way Joan’s witnesses narrate it. Her depo-
nents saw Robert’s actions as not only illicit, but also contemptible.
Accusingly, they relate how Robert was ‘seized’ of Joan’s own property,
and how he still has possession of it, the implication being that,
despite their separation, he continues to hold this property. To dwell
at such length on the issue of property and to whom it should belong
is an indication that the deponents interpreted Robert’s actions as
both cruelty and an infraction of marital property practices. One of
the possible conclusions we might draw from this evidence is that,
in the minds of these witnesses, cruelty was not only physical, but
also economic. None the less, property, in this case, was not merely
about abuse. By focusing on the value of lands and goods brought
into the marriage, the value of which was repeated by each witness
in turn, Joan’s witnesses provide the figure for what they seem to
believe is owed to her upon leaving the marriage. Without maintenance,
Joan was incapable of independent survival. Her lands and tenements
were an essential source of funding for her lifestyle. If she and Robert
were living separately and married only in the eyes of the law, what
rights should he have to her property?
Mismanagement of money and the tendency to fly into a rage
were not Robert’s only faults. Five of the plaintiff ’s witnesses reveal
that Robert had difficulties with governance. Although the details
are scanty and the documentation poor, it seems that while Joan
was still living with her husband, a mix-up occurred one day over
164 chapter four

lunch. Joan used a new pewter dish for Robert’s meal rather than
the one to which he was accustomed, causing Robert to beat her
severely; soon after this, Joan withdrew completely from his home.
Witnesses probably intended the context of this beating to sway the
judge’s opinion. Did Joan transgress her wifely bounds, requiring
Robert to discipline her? Or, was Robert treading into an area of
domesticity that was beyond the constraints of patriarchal authority?
Of Joan’s seven witnesses, five were male. Only the male witnesses
chose to recount this particular story of abuse. Their gender makes
this story all the more meaningful. What these men were objecting
to was Robert’s abuse of his position as a figure of authority within
the household. Surely, none of these men would have contested that
a man is the head of his household and as such is required to use
his power to keep his home in order, but he must use this power
wisely. In beating his wife and driving her away over something as
trivial as a pewter dish, Robert demonstrated that he is incapable
of exerting the authority conferred on him by virtue of their marriage.
Joan Ireby was successful in her plea for separation; without
any surviving evidence of the defendant’s position, however, it is
difficult to know exactly why. The sentence in her favour raises
numerous questions. Would Robert’s violence have been sufficient
on its own to gain her a favourable verdict? How influential was his
abuse of authority? Did ecclesiastical officials accord with popular
perceptions of a married woman’s property rights? Given the surviving
evidence, these questions must remain unanswered. Ireby’s case, more
than any other, demonstrates the broad range of issues that an appli-
cation for judicial separation had to take into consideration.

Why These Six Women?

Six cases of abuse over a period of two centuries most likely does
not constitute the total number of actual cases of non-homicidal, yet
excessive, marital strife in the northern ecclesiastical province of
England. All the same, they are the only extant records of violence
to come before the archbishop in which the woman perceived the
situation to be critical enough to warrant legal separation.70 Why

70
These were not the only cases of applications for divorce on the grounds of
separation in the late medieval period. Act books record the daily business of the
 the acceptability of marital violence 165

were these six women willing to tackle the ambiguous definition of

cruelty in order to obtain marital freedom when many others were
not?
First, we must grapple with the broader query of why any plaintiff
sued a case before the York consistory court. Plaintiffs in the arch-
bishop’s consistory were not there by mere chance. An examination
of the 88 cases of matrimonial litigation before the court at York in
the fourteenth century reveals that 61 of these cases (or, 71%) were
sued by plaintiffs whose residence was less than ten miles from the
court.71 The majority, then, were initiated by persons within the city
of York or immediately outside its perimeters. Thus, not only were
urbanites more litigious, but inevitably the less convenient a legal
resolution, the less frequently it was sought.
The urban/rural distinction is not just about convenience. Goldberg
notes “townswomen were less prepared to put up with unsatisfac-
tory and violent marriages than may have been true of their rural
sisters.”72 In fact, the high degree of female agency demonstrated by
urban women is a direct result of urban/rural distinctions in the
courtship process. While the rural north of the later Middle Ages
practised what has come to be viewed as the model of medieval
marriage, replete with manipulative and domineering parents, as well
as overarching concerns of property, the urban centre of York exhib-
ited a far different pattern. Many of the young women living in the
city of York were of rural origins, but had come to the city to work
as domestic servants. Their departure from the familial household
entailed less supervision not only of marriage, but also of sexuality.
Young people were “permitted a comparatively high degree of ini-
tiative,” allowing them the opportunity “to become emotionally entan-
gled with more than one partner,” and even to choose their own
marriage partners.73 Urban marriages may have been actual love
matches. If York women were so eager to challenge tradition and

courts in a brief, perfunctory way, and thus provide very few details. None the less,
cases of matrimonial litigation in which the dispute centres on physical abuse exist
among these records, although there is no corresponding documentation of the var-
ious stages of the process in the York cause papers.
71
Pedersen, “Demography,” 411. In this respect, it is important to remember
that there were five active archdeacons in the diocese and that they heard mar-
riage cases as well. Consequently, we should not expect to find all northern mari-
tal disputes in the archbishop’s court.
72
Goldberg, 439.
73
Goldberg, 433.
166 chapter four

initiate marriages independently, we should not be surprised that

they also demonstrated initiative in terminating them.
Pleading a matrimonial suit in court was no easy process. Not
only did it call for exceptional courage and strength of character
just to bring a case to court, but a plaintiff also required indepen-
dent access to funds in order to hire a proctor who is capable of
presenting the case in the best possible light. The entire legal process
was remarkably expensive. Each step of the judicial process had a
price tag attached: introduction and dismissal of a suit, three pence
each; letters of citation, four pence; writing of a libel, two shillings,
four pence; examination of a principal party, one shilling. All of this
adds up to a grand total of seven shillings, eight pence. This does
not even account for the costs of the proctor (six pence per appear-
ance), nor those fees exacted for interrogating the witnesses.74 In any
case where the court handed down a sentence, the party who lost
the suit was also responsible for paying in full all the costs owed by
the successful party.75 For an urban woman, then, matrimonial liti-
gation might be an expensive prospect, particularly in the event of
failure. For a rural woman, the costs would have been much, much
steeper. Not only was she required to cover all these same costs, she
had to foot the bill for her witnesses’ travel and lodging, as well as
her own. For witnesses, the high costs of litigation may have been
a significant factor; helping one’s neighbour only goes so far with-
out sufficient remuneration. The impracticality of embarking on such
a costly course of action must have deterred many rural women
from turning to the archbishop for a resolution to their marital woes.
For urban women with concrete cases and access to ample funds,
the consistory court would have been the quickest route to a per-
manent and legal solution.

74
These cost summaries have been taken from Brian L. Woodcock’s Medieval
Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (London: Oxford University Press, 1952),
61. A case from the Chancery records of the late fifteenth century suggests that
the cost for divorce litigation might have been particularly onerous. When Dame
Jane Cursen divorced her husband, Edmund Aylmer, circumstances compelled her
to borrow 40 marks in order to pay for the costs of litigation. Few women would
have had access to such a substantial sum of money. See TNA C 1/107/29, Dame
Jane Cursen c. Edmund Aylmer, husband of complainant (c. 1486 × 1493).
75
Woodcock, 61.
 the acceptability of marital violence 167

Matrimonial litigation in general seems to reflect this trend. The

courtrooms of the late medieval church were no place for the medieval
poor.76 Nor, however, were they a forum for aristocratic matrimo-
nial strife. Members of the upper crust ordinarily bypassed the courts
and took their causes directly to the bishop or archbishop. Instead,
the archbishop’s court tended to the domestic affairs of the middling
sort in society. The six cases of divorce a mensa et thoro on the grounds
of cruelty fall neatly into this paradigm. Not only were all six plaintiffs
urban women (five from York, one from Newcastle-upon-Tyne), most
also belonged to that middle economic layer. It is not always easy
to determine the economic standing of litigants in ecclesiastical causes,
since the records irregularly note their occupations. The York cause
papers tell us that Simon Munkton is a goldsmith (aurifaber) and
Henry Venables a young gentleman (domicellum), situating both at the
upper end of the middling variety. The case of Margery de Devoine
and Richard Scot also points to wealth. The court asked all their
witnesses specifically if they were tenants of the plaintiff, implying
that she, too, was fairly well off. With such heavy financial under-
tones, the case of Ireby c. Lonesdale strongly argues for an upper
middling stratum as well. In the remaining cases, it is not as easy
to assess the situation with any certainty. However, we know that
Margery and Thomas Nesfeld were sufficiently affluent to employ at
least one male domestic servant. One of Agnes Benson’s witnesses
stated that he was a fraser, a very middle of the road occupation
for the period. It seems safe to assume that Peter and Agnes Benson
associated with people who shared a similar economic standing. All
six female plaintiffs, then, belonged to an order of women with some
degree of economic clout.
These six women were fighting against the social grain. Marriage
litigation was, largely, an activity initiated by women for enforcing
their marriages.77 Despite their husbands’ dalliances and desperate
attempts to escape commitment without regard for children, impend-
ing pregnancies, or possible female destitution, the vast majority of
the women appearing before the archbishop were determined to hold

76
Helmholz, 160.
77
Charles Donahue, Jr. “Female Plaintiffs in Marriage Cases in the Court of
York in the Later Middle Ages: What can we learn from the Numbers?” in Wife
and Widow in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1993), 195–7.
168 chapter four

on to their men. Yet, these six women emerge as anomalies, equally

persistent, but with a view to retreating from marriage. While their
stories may not represent typical cases of abuse, they afford proof
that female independence was alive and well in the north of medieval
England.

Shared Aspects of Domestic Violence

Individually, these cases reveal much about abuse and common per-
ceptions; collectively, they have more to offer. Together, these cases
suggest that the laity understood violence in a gendered fashion. This
is not unusual. In her study of similar cases of abuse in the early
modern context, Laura Gowing notes that “not all members of the
community felt the same about the necessity to complain and inter-
vene. It was women, more often than men, who protested to vio-
lent husbands, sometimes physically interposing themselves between
husband and wife, and coming to court, later, to testify to their
female neighbour’s precise injuries, and it was women to whom bat-
tered wives turned first.”78 The medieval evidence also reveals a gen-
dered approach to domestic violence. Nesfeld c. Nesfeld is the only
instance in which the gender of the witnesses reflects that of the lit-
igants, creating a bold division between the sexes. Such a distribu-
tion allows some insight into how deponents of opposite sexes
interpreted differently the same instance of violence. Margery’s two
female friends not only appeared as witnesses on her behalf, but also
were instrumental in putting an end to a violent beating that they
feared would result in her death. Both women emphasised the neces-
sity of intervention required by the exceptional nature of the vio-
lence, as if the need for interference were sufficient proof in itself
that the marriage was dangerous. Conversely, John Semer, who also
participated in Margery’s rescue, interpreted the altercation in a
wholly different light. He did not perceive neighbourhood involve-
ment as tangible proof of a dangerous marriage.
The various accounts of Simon Munkton’s first attempt at an out-
of-court settlement with his wife demonstrate the same distinction in
perceptions of local intervention. The male deponents downplayed

78
Gowing, 217.
 the acceptability of marital violence 169

the level of violence, although there were differences in the way wit-
nesses for the plaintiff and for the defendant framed their stories.
Agnes’s witnesses all credited John de Midelton with having saved
her from certain danger, and yet the man who intervened and res-
cued Agnes appeared instead as a witness for the defendant. His
version of the events is so tame that one wonders why he bothered
to intercede in their affairs at all. Even so, it is not very different
from the testimonies of the male witnesses for the plaintiff. Thomas
Esoby offers the most detailed description of the encounter. He saw
Simon throw Agnes to the ground and restrain her with his body,
“[b]ut whether Simon hit the said Agnes then he does not know for
certain.” He also witnessed Simon pull out a knife, although he was
quick to point out that Simon “did not stab anyone with it, so far
as this witness knows.”79 Neither account resembles the brutality
alleged by female witness for the plaintiff, Julianne de Aldeburgh.
She claimed that Agnes was confined to her bed for over two weeks
after the assault. Even if the male witnesses had not been present
for the duration of the episode, Agnes’s condition after the fact, and
her absence from village life for a period of fifteen days, should have
been noteworthy. What Julianne de Aldeburgh recognised as an inap-
propriate and excessive use of force within marriage, John de Midelton
saw merely as a disruption of quiet village life.
The case of Wyvell c. Venables provides yet another example of
gendered distinctions in focus and priority. Of the five witnesses for
the plaintiff, three were male. The depositions of two of the male
witnesses are distinct in their preoccupation with the defendant’s
adultery, almost to the exclusion of anything else. One witness,
Alexander Johnson of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, does not even refer to
Henry’s behaviour towards his wife, although he acknowledges that
Henry is married, that his wife’s exemplary disposition is known
throughout the city of York, and that Henry is “a violent and ter-
rible man.” This is all he has to say about their relationship. The
rest of his deposition is restricted to Henry’s extramarital activities
with Mabota Don, presenting a much fuller perspective on the rela-
tionship than any of the other witnesses for the plaintiff. Johnson
not only summarises the long-standing nature of the affair and the
number of children born to Mabota as a result, he also includes

79
YBI CP. E 248/26c.
170 chapter four

details omitted by the other deponents, such as where Henry and

Mabota cohabited in Westchester, and Henry’s public declaration
that “no bishop would separate them from leading this life.”80 The
next witness, John Kirkby of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, discusses the
abuse in few words, mentioning that Henry “is accustomed to beat-
ing his wife,” that he is “a violent, demented, terrible and lunatic
man,” and that Cecilia “did not dare say anything about the abuse
out of fear for her life.” Otherwise, his testimony also focuses on
the adultery of Henry and his concubine, describing how he has
seen Henry alone with Mabota lying in a bed in her chamber, and
reporting the number of children they produced between them. Why
were both these deponents so engrossed in Henry’s sex life? Is it
possible that they regarded Henry’s illicit sexual encounters as a
more egregious transgression than physical abuse? Of the five wit-
nesses for the plaintiff these two deponents were the only residents
of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. All the other witnesses resided within the
city of York. The geographical distinction alone may have made
them more privy to Henry’s affair with Mabota than his scurrilous
behaviour towards his wife. Nevertheless, it seems peculiar, given
that both men were aware of the dispositions of husband and wife
and had some knowledge of their marriage, that John Kirkby merely
glossed over the abuse, while Alexander Johnson omits it entirely. If
the nature of the abuse were as virulent as indicated by the remain-
ing three witnesses, this silence speaks volumes. To prioritise Henry’s
moral crimes as adultery first, near-fatal abuse second, indicates that
these two men shared a perspective on the significance of violence
within marriage far different from their female counterparts.
As witnesses to her husband’s cruelty, Cecilia presented two females
and one male on her behalf. All three recount similar stories of
abuse. The chief difference among the three depositions lies in the
number of violent episodes described by each witness. Agnes, wife
of Adam Shafton of York, offered two violent encounters. Cecilia,
wife of William Redeness of York, addressed the same two instances,
but highlighted this tale with a description of Cecilia’s failed suicide
attempts. William Constowe of York mentioned only the most mem-
orable incident of violence when Henry nearly blinded Cecilia. Is it
mere coincidence that the male witness presented the least violent

80
YBI CP. F 56/7.
 the acceptability of marital violence 171

account of their marriage? It may be that what Agnes and Cecilia

Redeness interpreted as sure signs of abuse, William did not.
The cases of Devoine c. Scot, Benson c. Benson and Ireby
c. Lonesdale, on the other hand, do not show a particular predilec-
tion for female intervention nor gendered interpretations in address-
ing the issue of physical violence. Even in the case of economic
deprivation by Robert Lonesdale, the male deponents felt as adamantly
as did their female counterparts that Robert’s treatment of his wife
was unjust. The only gendered distinction in this case concerns the
issue of authority. The pewter bowl incident demonstrates the male
deponents’ aversion to an abuse of governance by Robert, and indi-
cates that some men believed that irrational rule was as abhorrent
a contravention of the marital bonds as physical abuse. Gowing’s
hypothesis that “women were likelier to perceive men’s violence as
unacceptable” would seem to hold true for the medieval period,
although the paucity of case studies and depositions warrants a greater
study of the phenomenon.81
A gendered perspective of marital roles laid the base for telling
stories of abuse in matrimonial litigation in the medieval church
courts. Both witnesses for the plaintiff and for the defendant cau-
tiously recounted their version of events in a way that highlighted
each party’s ability to stay within the scope of acceptable gender
behaviour. Garthine Walker’s 1998 study of rape and sexual vio-
lence in early modern England sheds some light on this occurrence
and the importance for women, in particular, to plead normative
behaviour.82 It is Walker’s contention that victims of rape inten-
tionally shaped their sorry tales to highlight their passivity. This con-
struction is justified by medieval and early modern perceptions of
female sexuality. Because the active female in discourses of illicit sex-
uality is either wanton or a prostitute, women are incapable of
describing themselves in an active role in situations of rape without
characterising themselves as zealous participants. Simultaneously,
because discourses of consensual sex focus on the active male/passive
female, victims of rape cannot describe a sexual encounter that would
suggest male criminality. Before the courts, then, women often omitted

81
Gowing, 231.
82
See Garthine Walker, “Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern
England,” Gender and History 10 (1998): 1–25.
172 chapter four

any details of the sexual act, concentrating instead on the physical

violence. With this approach, they constructed a story focused on
male action, not female behaviour, and avoided implicating them-
selves altogether.83
Many similarities exist between rape and spousal abuse: a gen-
dered hierarchy defines both relationships; both involve masculine
power over female bodies. As such, they experience many of the
same discursive difficulties. While rape was surely better defined crim-
inally than spousal abuse in late medieval England, marital violence
was equally difficult to discuss. An active woman resisting the advances
of a rapist was not a victim at all; in fact, she was everything one
would expect from a willing, albeit lewd, participant. Likewise, a
wife who returned her husband’s blows was not a victim of abuse;
she was a disobedient woman. The courts were very much aware
that a woman who defended herself too vehemently might easily
cross the line between self-defence and petty treason.
The most effective strategy adopted by plaintiffs and their wit-
nesses in cases of spousal abuse was to put forward accounts of vio-
lence with an exclusive focus on male action, withholding entirely
the female reaction. For example, when Margery de Devoine’s hus-
band, Richard Scot, beat her with a staff to the head, wounding
her severely and knocking one of her eyes from the socket, Margery
alleges that she did not raise a hand in her defence. The same pas-
sive restraint is evident when Henry Venables beat his wife Cecilia
to the ground with a staff and then strangled her. With both their
lives in danger, it is difficult to imagine that either woman simply
accepted her fate without casting a single blow in her defence. That
either woman survived these attempts on their lives is nothing short
of miraculous. None the less, both plaintiffs and their deponents lead
us to believe that they willingly submitted themselves to their hus-
bands’ authority, however excessive. These records only mention one

83
Women may also have felt that, as in cases of rape, it was impossible to pre-
sent a credible story of abuse that would not implicate the wife. An exemplum from
John of Bromyard’s compendium recounts the story of a rape victim whose story
is tested by the judge by commanding the accused to take the complainant’s money
from her. When the complainant fiercely guards her money, the judge replied “that
if she had defended her chastity as hard as she did her money she would have
kept it.” See Ruth Mazo Karras, “Gendered sin and Misogyny in John of Bromyard’s
Summa Predicantium,” Traditio 47 (1992): 247. Thus, women may have encountered
some difficulty in presenting themselves as victims at all.
 the acceptability of marital violence 173

instance of a woman actively resisting her husband. During a par-

ticularly unpleasant argument between Margery and Thomas Nesfeld,
Margery ran into the street and raised the hue on Thomas. It is
significant, however, that a witness for the defendant brought for-
ward this single shred of proof demonstrating active female resis-
tance with the intention of casting Margery in a negative light. Even
this description of human agency is specifically gendered. Self-defence
for a man surely did not involve tears and wailing. The skilled manip-
ulation of the details by medieval deponents to remove all evidence
of female resistance paints the perfect picture for a suit of judicial
separation: the only transgression of acceptable gender boundaries
was a masculine show of tyranny. In the minds of the witnesses for
the plaintiff, this was not the case of undue chastisement, but full-
blown spousal abuse.
The records emphasise female passivity in a number of other ways.
Perhaps the most obvious was for plaintiffs and their witnesses to
describe carefully how the woman narrowly escaped death through
the intervention of others. If Margery Nesfeld’s friends had not
stepped in, Thomas surely would have stabbed her to death. If Cecilia
Wyvell’s neighbours had not pulled Henry from Cecilia’s body, she
too would have died. With such active friends and neighbours, a
beaten wife did not have to act in her own defence. Even the lan-
guage of the testimonies supports this interpretation of the events.
Tales of abuse were invariably accounts of the active male. Men
strike, beat or mistreat their wives; women, on the other hand, are
struck, beaten or mistreated. The Latin construction of these tales
highlights the female position as object: the victim is described in
the accusative, while the nominative is reserved for the perpetrator
of the abuse. Defendants are the actors; plaintiffs are acted upon.
The formulaic statement included at the end of each libel and depo-
sition captures best the sense of female inactivity the plaintiff and
her witnesses hoped to convey: the wife “does not dare cohabit” with
her husband out of fear for her life. If she dared return home, she
would be a far braver person than her femininity permits.
The testimonies did not reflect the reality even superficially, and
both the litigants and the courts were well aware of this. If any of
these women was as passive, submissive and frightened as her wit-
nesses stated, would they have been capable of suing their husbands
in court? How does a woman make the transition from cowering
victim to plaintiff ? The fact that Cecilia Wyvell, at least, is known
174 chapter four

to have been successful in her plea confirms that the gap between
discourse and reality may have been insignificant in the grand scheme
of things. Justice, even at this time, had little to do with who was
in the wrong; rather, it was meted out to those who told the most
convincing story. Male defendants regularly employed a similar strat-
egy when pleading their cases. Henry Venables was the only wit-
ness to deny the allegations, and thus reject male agency. His lack
of success in court suggests that he might have been better advised
to embrace the gender paradigm. In all the other cases examined
here the husband, or witnesses on his behalf, readily transform abuse
into roughly acceptable, if somewhat overzealous, wifely chastise-
ment. Simon Munkton’s response best exemplifies this approach. In
minimising the intensity of the violence, and painting his wife as a
lewd woman in desperate need of moral correction, Simon’s actions
were no longer those of an irrational, abusive husband; rather, he
was the concerned and able Christian patriarch, teaching his wife
the errors of her ways with a firm hand. Simon was not alone in
asserting the right to correct his wife’s failings; Thomas Nesfeld,
Richard Scot, Peter Benson and Robert Lonesdale all argued at some
point that it was their legal right to chastise their wives physically.
These men were drawing on the same paradigm of male/female
relations as were their wives. Wives manipulated this model to pre-
sent themselves as victims of excessive male action; husbands argued
the opposite. They had not surpassed the limits of their authority;
instead, their wives had taken active, illicit control of their lives. If
active femininity was necessarily sinful, the defendants, then, were
compelled to exert their authority and force their wives back into
positions of submission. If the discipline was excessive, its objective
was none the less admirable.
The conscious shaping of stories in order to fit within socially
acceptable parameters is nowhere more evident than in the descrip-
tion of the weapons used to inflict injuries. In each tale, while hus-
bands claimed to use fists and feet, witnesses for the plaintiff regularly
commented on specific weapons: Thomas Nesfeld used a dagger, a
club and a knife, Simon Munkton a knife, Richard Scot a staff,
Henry Venables a shortened staff, Peter Benson a knife, and Robert
Lonesdale a dagger, a knife and a tapstaff. When the defendant or
his representatives had an opportunity to respond to the allegations,
the weapons suddenly disappeared. John Semer, in support of his
former employer, Thomas Nesfeld, argues that Thomas struck his
 the acceptability of marital violence 175

wife with his fist, twice, but failed to mention any evidence of a
brandished dagger. John de Midelton emphatically denied the exis-
tence of a knife wielded by Simon Munkton in the street fight with
his wife, despite the testimonies of a number of witnesses for the
plaintiff. These same litigants attempted more desperately than any
other to recast their abuse as moral correction. Apparently, both
men married rebellious, perfidious women. Simon Munkton’s wife
not only disobeys express commands, but she is also disrespectful
and irreverent; Thomas Nesfeld’s wife denounces him publicly and
may even be of murderous intent. Both men argued that their ‘cas-
tigations’ were within their legal rights and in response to their wives’
immoral activities. Given the wilful moulding of the legal narrative,
the defendants’ renderings of the events are meaningful. In the minds
of both defendants and plaintiffs, fists and feet fell short of the legal
requirements for a judicial separation; weapons did not.
The tendency of Yorkshire husbands to construct defences that
played down the degree of violence bolsters the idea that northern-
ers were intolerant of physical aggression that might leave lasting
marks on the body of the recipient. Therefore, in the case of Cecilia
Wyvell, the defendant’s witnesses avoid mention of the beating that
left Wyvell bandaged around the arm and neck. In the case of
Margery Nesfeld, the defendant never addresses her broken “spelbone.”
None of the defendants mentions anything having to do with eye-
balls popping out of their sockets. Evidence from the diocese of
Canterbury raises the question of whether the expectation of limited
physical injury was restricted to the north. In a case of domestic
violence from 1470 in the London area, Yon Machon openly admit-
ted to flying into a rage and beating his wife Elizabeth so that her
skin turned black and blood flowed from her head. He also beat
her left arm until he believed that he had broken it, and it had to be
set with a sling for over a month afterwards.84 Although he acknowl-
edged this as a beating and admitted that it was undeserving, he
was also very careful to describe it as castigation; yet, Machon fails
to note why such vehement discipline was required. Likewise, in a
case from Maldon, Essex, when William Hyndeley was facing alle-
gations of abusing his wife Joan, his own version of events was grue-
some. He describes how he struck Joan with a staff so hard that

84
LMA MS DL/C/205, fo. 58r, Elizabeth Machon c. Yon Machon (1470).
176 chapter four

blood flowed from her forehead, and she “languished” in bed after
the beating.85 Hyndeley, at least, explains his violent actions. He
argues that his wife provoked his actions by speaking “opprobrious,
contentious, scolding and vexatious words.”86 The evidence from the
diocese of London may even suggest that southerners equated dis-
cipline with beatings as one witness for the plaintiff did in a case
from the year 1471. When asked to comment on the marriage of
Joan Baron and Robert Howton, Joan Hyde said that “she found
fault with the said Robert Howton because of the correction or inor-
dinate beating” to which he submitted his wife.87 After some elabo-
ration, it became clear that this ‘correction’ consisted of an attempt
on her life in which he brandished a dagger and gravely injured his
wife.88 The degree of violence presented by defendants in all three
of these cases is excessive when compared to their northern coun-
terparts. While this disparity may speak to the nature of violence
exhibited in these nine specific cases, it is also possible that southern
Englishmen tolerated more brutality in marriage than their northern
countrymen.
Collectively, these six cases from the York court provide an impor-
tant perspective of the regulation of domestic violence in the late
medieval period. Most significant, they point to the existence of an
informal system of spousal expulsion and separation among the laity,
despite canonical regulations forbidding it. In all of the cases of
divorce a mensa et thoro, separation had occurred long before the case
appeared in court: Margery and Thomas Nesfeld had been sepa-
rated for four years; Margery Devoine and Richard Scot, eight years;
Cecilia Wyvell and Henry Venables, seven years; and Agnes and
Peter Benson, six years. These lengthy periods of separation, or self-
divorces, suggest a number of points. First, something must have
happened to threaten their current situation; otherwise, none of these
couples would have appeared in court. A de facto separation had
already occurred; a formal recognition of this would not have altered
their relationship in any tangible way. For these women to face the
high costs of court and reopen old wounds there must have been

85
GL MS DL/C/205, fo. 293r, Joan Hyndeley c. William Hyndeley.
86
Gl MS DL/C/205, fo. 293r.
87
LMA MS DL/C/205, fo. 93r, Joan Baron alias Howton alias Palmer c. Robert
Howton alias Palmer (1471).
88
LMA MS DL/C/205, fo. 93r.
 the acceptability of marital violence 177

the threat of a forced reconciliation. Most of these women may have

found themselves presented before the lower courts of the church
for spousal non-cohabitation, and chose not to abide by the court’s
decision. Another possibility is that these women suddenly found
themselves in need of maintenance, although after such lengthy sep-
arations it is more difficult to uncover the reasons for a sudden
change in economics. Second, the only cases not to experience a
lengthy period of separation prior to litigation were those in which
the women were wealthy in their own right. This is a common fea-
ture of late medieval matrimonial litigation. It was women, not men,
who usually fought to enforce a marriage; however, “when the
financial stakes [were] high,” medieval men suddenly took an avid
interest in keeping a marriage together.89
What is most striking is the fact that, despite the amount of time
that had passed since the abuse, the witnesses still precisely and
vividly recalled the instances of violence. This unusual ability to rec-
ollect events long past raises a number of critical questions. Did these
memories trouble their sub-consciences because the violence was so
exceptional and disturbing? Conversely, is it possible that these were
not really memories at all, but fabrications by the plaintiff and her
friends in order to meet the requirements of the court?

“Fiction in the Archives”

The similarity of the most violent episodes of abuse sustained in

three of the divorces within this sampling would seem to suggest that
plaintiffs might have embellished their tales of abuse. Margery de
Devoine, Cecilia Wyvell and Joan Ireby all suffered an extraordi-
nary affliction because of beatings to the head: in each case, the
defendant struck the plaintiff ’s head so hard that an eye burst from
the socket and hung on her check. Three of Cecilia’s witnesses repeat
this tale; the record reports that her mother, who was present dur-
ing the quarrel, gently replaced it in the socket. Only one of Margery’s
and one of Joan’s witnesses mentioned this detail in their narratives,
and neither gave any indications of a resolution. Although these
women experienced similar beatings to the head and therefore may

89
Donahue, “Female Plaintiffs,” 197.
178 chapter four

have sustained identical injuries, it seems unusual that all three

suffered such a remarkable impairment. It is possible that all three
women are drawing on the same pool of images about spousal abuse
or violence against women, influenced heavily by saints’ lives and
English folklore. The vita of the virgin martyr Saint Lucy may in
fact be the source for the abuse appearing in these tales. According
to her vita, Saint Lucy of Syracuse was a fourth-century Christian
determined to remain celibate. After disbursing her dowry to the
poor, her intended bridegroom, consul Paschasius, became enraged
and denounced her as a Christian. To punish her for her false con-
version, he ordered that she be forced into prostitution. When the
guards came to arrest her, they were unable to budge Lucy from
her place, even after they had tethered her to a team of oxen. Seeing
these efforts were fruitless, Paschasius ordered that she be tortured
and then killed. They tried to burn her to death; but the flaming
bundles of wood would not consume her. Finally, they executed her
by stabbing her in the throat with a dagger.
Two different legends of the life of Saint Lucy incorporate stories
having to do with eyes. In one, Lucy responds to a suitor’s flattery
by plucking her eyes out of their sockets and presenting them to
him on a platter. In the other, Paschasius’s minions tore her eyes
from her head while they tortured her cruelly. In both, her eyes
were restored miraculously to their sockets. Not surprisingly, Lucy
became the patron saint of the blind and those suffering from eye
ailments, and is represented iconographically by a statue of her hold-
ing a dish with two eyeballs balanced delicately upon it. This element
of her vita was especially prominent in late medieval representations.90
Her story was suited especially to tales of abuse in a courtroom set-
ting. Not only are the attacks on St Lucy analogous with spousal
abuse, but these grisly and vivid tales of violence against the virgin
martyrs had a particular resonance in late medieval Europe.91 Any
woman wishing to paint herself the ideal Christian woman would
delight in drawing similarities with such a pivotal figure.

90
David Hugh Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1978), 404.
91
For a fuller discussion of the popularity and meaning of the vitae of the vir-
gin martyrs, see Shari Horner, “The Violence of Exegesis: Reading the Bodies of
Ælfric’s Female Saints,” in Violence against Women in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), 22–43.
 the acceptability of marital violence 179

Why would any of these witnesses invent parts of their tales of

abuse when, if their narratives are to be believed, it seems that these
women were actually in dangerous marriages and might provide their
own stories of abuse? The inevitable conclusion is that none of these
individuals was confident that what she had suffered would meet the
court’s definition of cruelty. Instead, they drew on their knowledge
of what constitutes excessive violence against women in the eyes of
the church, and included it in their testimonies. Irrespective of whether
violence of this degree actually occurred, the stories recounted by
the plaintiffs and their witnesses are meaningful. Both carefully con-
structed cases that they believed would meet the church’s mandate:
both lay families and the church considered beatings that endan-
gered the life of the victim, near-blindings, and even mental, verbal
and economic abuse excessive.

Spousal Abuse and Male Honour

If the plaintiffs presented even a shred of truth about the levels of

violence within marriage, it is difficult to understand why their hus-
bands defended their cases so vehemently. Why were these men so
determined to save their miserable marriages? There are a number
of explanations for these bold responses. First, it is important to
acknowledge that these defences are necessarily a product of the
ecclesiastical system of law to which the litigants submitted their mar-
riages. Even if Henry Venables wanted a separation as much as his
wife Cecilia, he could not simply appear in court and ask for one.
The nature of the litigation demanded that he present a defence to
his wife’s allegations; the courts might interpret any failure to do so
as collusion, an attempt by husband and wife to deceive the court
into falsely granting a separation. Bearing this in mind, it made the
most sense for any husband to present his case with an air of
confidence and entitlement; but, as in the case of Henry Venables,
put forward a defence based on little evidence and replete with con-
tradictions and exaggerations, ensuring his wife’s victory.
In this grouping of cases, however, it seems clear that Venables
was the only defendant to fall into this category. All five of the other
husbands eagerly refuted the accusations against them and presented
generally solid defences. Financial considerations may explain their
obstinate refusal to let go of their marriages: in the event of a
180 chapter four

separation, the church expected the husband to continue to main-

tain his wife, even though she no longer resided with him. Providing
enough money for food, clothing and separate shelter for a wife
could be quite costly, and some men did just about anything to shirk
this responsibility. In the cases of Lonesdale and Munkton, a sepa-
ration might have endangered the husband’s access to joint assets.
Especially in those cases of men who married up in society, a sep-
aration had negative repercussions on a man’s livelihood. Financial
considerations may also explain a husband’s counter-accusations of
adulterous behaviour. Some canonists argued in favour of penalis-
ing adulterous wives with the loss of their dowries.92 This moraliz-
ing attitude, if not the prescription itself, was carried over into secular
statute law. According to the second Statute of Westminster (1285),
an adulteress was ineligible to claim dower rights after the death of
her husband unless he had forgiven her, and the two were recon-
ciled at the time of his death.93 Accusations of adultery, then, rep-
resent a last attempt to safeguard a man’s property rights, whether
they, too, wished to separate or not.
Defendants may also have felt compelled to defend their honour.
These cases fall in the midst of a growing culture of slander, incom-
parable to anything that came before it, surfacing in the later Middle
Ages and flourishing in the sixteenth century. In the royal courts,
the growth of the action on the case for words is a hallmark of the
vastly increased concern. The proper and more popular forum for
resolution of defamation suits, however, was that of the church courts.
Throughout the late medieval period, cases of defamation became
more and more numerous, so much so that by the dawning of the
early modern era the church courts of England were preoccupied
with slander litigation to the exclusion of all else.94 In the church
courts, slander struck right to the heart of gender identity and the
culturally defined standards of morality associated with it. For women,
this inevitably meant smears of their sexual character, while for men
honesty, reliability and respectability were much more at stake. Men
appeared in court to defy allegations of theft, assault, even homicide
in a fervent attempt to clear their good names. Plaintiffs in cases of

92
Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, 541.
93
Westminster II, c. 34.
94
See R.H. Helmholz, “Introduction,” Select Cases on Defamation to 1600 (London:
Selden Society, 1985).
 the acceptability of marital violence 181

defamation often came forward of their own initiative, with com-

purgators in tow, to purge themselves of any derogatory accusations,
rather than awaiting a presentment in the church courts. L.R. Poos
describes this form of legal prevention as “self-defence compurga-
tion.”95 Late medieval society promoted a culture in which honest
reputation enabled one to speak in the courts, to trade, to have a
political voice and to gain respect within one’s community. We can-
not undervalue the importance of reputation as a motivation for
zealous engagement in ecclesiastical litigation. Defamation suits were
“not just about reputation in the abstract, but some very tangible
penalties.”96 Condemnation in an ecclesiastical court entailed financial
penalties; confirmed accusations of theft, assault and homicide might
end up before the royal courts facing the threat of fines or execu-
tion. Men and women alike, then, had palpable reasons to protect
their honour.
A study of ex officio defamations from Wisbech, Durham and London
in the fifteenth century uncovers the case of a man defending him-
self against allegations of ill-treating his wife.97 At less than one per-
cent of the total number of cases of defamation in those courts, this
case does not suggest a frequent occurrence of suits of this type.
However, its existence confirms that a link existed between mascu-
line honour and marital conduct. Late medieval society held certain
expectations for men in marriage and did not perceive cruelty as
honourable behaviour. Lindsay Bryan similarly argues that late
medieval society considered wife beating scandalous; her study high-
lights that church courts dealing with cases of abuse not only pun-
ished the sinful act, but also the sin of scandalising other parishioners.98
The cases of divorce a mensa et thoro from the York cause papers
fit well within this paradigm. Allegations against the defendants cast
aspersions on their honour and masculinity. Concession to the demands
of the plaintiff amounted, in effect, to an open confession of failed
manhood, and admission that they could govern neither their wives
nor their tempers. The attempts by the defendants to normalise the

95
L.R. Poos, “Sex, Lies, and the Church Courts of Pre-Reformation England,”
Journal of Interdisciplinary History 25 (1995): 588n.
96
Poos, 607.
97
Poos, 598.
98
Lindsay Bryan, “Scandle is Heaued Sinne,” Florilegium 14 (1995–6): 71–86.
182 chapter four

violence by describing it within acceptable limits, then, take on a

new light. These men were not trying to hold together their mar-
riages for the sake of the marriage; they were trying to salvage what
remained of their marred reputations. Informal separation, while
damaging to a man’s name, might be rationalised as a temporary
difficulty; judicial separation, however, was an explicit affirmation of
a man’s inadequacies and had to be avoided at all costs.
A man’s honour was tied intimately to his ability to control his
wife’s behaviour. Men like Thomas Nesfeld and Richard Scot, although
they, too, may have wished to end their marriages, were compelled
to defend their actions out of honour. If a good husband, and thus
a good man, was one who treated his wife “honourably and decently,”
then a confession of abuse acted as a declaration of failed marital
masculinity. Recasting their actions as acceptable in the eyes of the
church not only excuses their violence but also, in essence, paints
the picture of ideal married masculinity. With such unruly and inap-
propriate behaviour from their wives, these men were doing what
men do best: discipline. If we believe Thomas Nesfeld and Richard
Scot, then, they were not abusive husbands, but model patriarchs.

Conclusion

The York cause papers demonstrate that ecclesiastical sentencing was

entirely pragmatic: unless the evidence was eminently persuasive, the
judge maintained the status quo. While only three verdicts have survived
out of the six cases of abuse, distinction between success and failure
seems to rely exclusively on number of witnesses and their credibil-
ity. Is this a ‘heavy-handed’ approach? The success of Wyvell c.
Venables and Ireby c. Lonesdale, at least, would appear to argue
otherwise. The courts may have offered incentive for separation cases
to obtain a formal resolution by presenting these couples in court,
but the settlements of both these cases would seem to suggest that,
where the evidence was plentiful, the court granted a separation.
What these cases illustrate, however, is a possible gap between lay
and curial interpretations of spousal abuse, but also a diversity of
discursive construction even within those two positions. Laura Gowing
reminds us “we cannot assume an unproblematic community whose
moral interests and ideas were more or less in accord with those of
lawgivers in the spiritual and secular sphere and more or less the same
 the acceptability of marital violence 183

across the differences of age, class, family, and gender.”99 While signi-
ficant variations in interpretation existed, these cases allow us to develop
a broader awareness of formal and public constructions of domestic
violence and the interaction and exchange between the two.
The savage clubbings, near blindings, and attempted homicides
on wives presented by these deponents may not represent accurately
actual instances of violence between these couples. Yet, the willingness
of neighbours and friends to support these women in their applications
for separation, and particularly to jeopardise their souls through creative
fabrication of some details, is significant. Even if, at times, plaintiffs
and their deponents exaggerated the extent of violence, medieval
families upheld an ideal of the acceptable boundaries of wifely chas-
tisement and physical violence was limited in this model. Moreover,
because plaintiffs and their deponents shaped these instances of vio-
lence to meet the court’s stringent requirements, these cases demonstrate
what kinds of violence were not acceptable: a man might discipline
his wife when required, but wife beating was not generally tolerated.

99
Gowing, 11.
 CHAPTER FIVE

REGULATING MARITAL VIOLENCE:

THE FAMILY AND THE COMMUNITY

By the very nature of the process, legal records permit a glimpse

into abnormal, rather than typical, behaviour. Weapon-wielding,
homicidal spouses, as well as threats of excommunication and execution
were not part of the normal process of dealing with spousal abuse.
Certainly, before the mid-fourteenth century, marital violence did
not frequently propel couples into the courtroom for a judicial solution;
even after this period, couples seldom sought legal resolution for their
marital difficulties. In the home environment, family and friends were
the most likely candidates to intervene in situations that they perceived
to be out of control.1 Given the extensive participation of families
and friends in the medieval marriage process, their continued involve-
ment after the wedding was predictable, if not compulsory. Michael
Sheehan has boldly described marriage as one of the medieval family’s
“procedures for recruiting new members,” noting that intervention
by third parties began even before the first possible moments of
courtship.2 More recently, Shannon McSheffrey has argued that while
“[l]egally, only the present consent of the principals was necessary
to create a binding contract of marriage . . . . socially, the right and
wise thing to do was to marry with the advice and sometimes the
consent of relatives, employers and friends.”3 If families and friends

1
A number of authors have suggested this possibility. Barbara A. Hanawalt, The
Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986), 208–210; P.J.P. Goldberg, Women, Work, and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy:
Women in York and Yorkshire c. 1300–1520 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 267.
2
Michael M. Sheehan, “Choice of Marriage Partner in the Middle Ages: Develop-
ment and Mode of Application of a Theory of Marriage,” Studies in Medieval and
Renaissance History, n.s. 1 (1978): 5. This article also appears in his Marriage, Family,
and Law in Medieval Europe: Collected Studies, ed. James K. Farge (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1996), 87–117.
3
Shannon McSheffrey, “‘I Will Never Have None Ayenst My Faders Will’: Consent
and the Making of Marriage in the Late Medieval Diocese of London,” in Women,
Marriage, and Family in Medieval Christendom: Essays in Memory of Michael M. Sheehan,
C.S.B., ed. Constance M. Rousseau, Joel T. Rosenthal (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute
 regulating marital violence 185

were eager to participate in matchmaking, they had an even more

pressing vested interest in the future prosperity of the couple; over-
seeing the smooth running of a marriage was a way of protecting
their investment.
The nature of English village life, in fact, guaranteed the involve-
ment of the wider community in family problems. Living in densely
populated villages, friends and neighbours had comprehensive knowl-
edge of one another’s private lives. The York cause papers provide
numerous examples of neighbours and friends brought as witnesses
before the church courts to document instances of sexual intercourse.4
If members of a couple’s community were privy to such intimate
details, how could they not have been equally aware of every heated
argument? The walls of medieval homes were too thin and too close
in proximity to their neighbours’ to have muffled the angry voices
of marital discontent. The medieval approach to keeping the peace
encouraged and even required active intervention in the lives of their
fellow villagers. Participation in tithing groups prepared men from
the age of twelve to police their communities and report on the
misdoings and illicit behaviours of their neighbours; what man from
this background would hesitate to intrude in another man’s home if
he believed a woman’s life was in danger?
Even if the records do not always highlight the involvement of
family and friends, both intervened regularly in matters of spousal
abuse. Their actions speak to communal beliefs and expectations of
appropriate marital behaviour current in later medieval England.
When family and friends chose to intervene in abusive marriages,
adopting the role of arbitrator or marriage counsellor, they did so
because they felt that violence in the home exceeded acceptable
levels. Instances of communal intervention documented in the courts
highlight unsuccessful attempts to resolve marital spats; it is not hard
to imagine that for each case that appeared in the courts, another
ten or more cases were sorted out in the community by families and
friends, making legal intervention unnecessary.
Nevertheless, the legal records demonstrate that families, neighbours
and friends actively involved themselves in both acts of marital

Publications, 1998), 156. See also James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society
in Medieval Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 498.
4
Frederik Pedersen, “Did the Medieval Laity Know the Canon Law Rules on
Marriage? Some Evidence from Fourteenth-Century York Cause Papers,” Mediaeval
Studies 56 (1994): 116, 118, 131.
186 chapter five

violence, as well as its regulation. Not only were they frequently

accomplices in cases of spousal homicide, it was also their primary
responsibility to act as judges in the coroner’s inquest. Coroner’s
inquest juries were composed of representatives from the visne, the
scene of the crime: in cases of marital violence, all too often the
home of the victim. As jurors, neighbours and friends, who may
have arbitrated marital disputes in the home of the deceased on
more than one occasion, they offered their opinions on what had
happened, and whether the accused should hang. Their actions as
jurors, especially, are integral to unravelling popular understandings
of spousal violence in its extreme form.

Marriage, Violence and the Family

Later medieval marriage was anything but a private affair. Even

before the first moments of courtship, families worked to manipu-
late the social environment of their children to guide them towards
an ‘appropriate’ partner. Youths were introduced to future spouses
through organised communal events (such as guild activities, feast
day celebrations, village dances and carolling), but group encounters
of this nature also worked to restrict their social interactions to those
who shared similar (or ideally, slightly better) economic and social
standing within the community. Parents and older siblings as well
played an active role in chaperoning the relationships of youths, in
part, because the marriage of one member affected the entire fam-
ily. Because wealth and land were critical factors in the choice of
spousal partners, marriage required strategy: parents and siblings
strove to form the most effective union to benefit at once the cou-
ple and the family. While love and marital affection were surely not
foreign concepts to this society, they were not the overriding con-
cerns in the courtship process.5 As Barbara Hanawalt has argued,
“[t]o marry for love without land or chattels could assure nothing

5
Although Michael Sheehan has argued that spousal selection in medieval England,
especially among the lower classes, was indeed a matter of individual choice, more
recent historians have suggested that familial intervention was still common. See for
example, Shannon McSheffrey, “Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval London
Civic Culture: Governance, Patriarchy and Reputation,” in Conflicted Identities and
Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. Jacqueline Murray (New York:
Garland, 1999), 243–78.
 regulating marital violence 187

but a life of penury.”6 Naturally, love and economics were not mutu-
ally exclusive; the best marriages embraced both. None the less, these
dual, and sometimes conflicting, priorities laid the groundwork for
a climate conducive to marital disharmony. The well-known exam-
ple of the wilful Margery Paston’s ill-fated choice in spouses demon-
strates the importance of combining the two. When she rebelled
against her family’s wishes and married the family’s head bailiff,
Richard Calle, Margery threw the Paston family into turmoil. Despite
a succession of beatings and a lengthy separation, both Margery and
Richard insisted that they had knowingly exchanged words in the
present tense, forcing the bishop to acknowledge their union.7 Even-
tually, the Pastons permitted Margery to live with Richard as his
wife. Because she had failed to marry with the family’s economic
interests in mind, her family gained its revenge by alienating her
entirely: the family’s correspondence never mentions her again, even
though Richard continued his work with the Pastons. Margery and
Richard’s marriage is a paradigm of the dangers of marrying only
for love. Although the Paston letters offer no evidence of the sub-
sequent quality of their marriage, it is hard to imagine that Margery’s
new status as family pariah had no influence on her marital rela-
tionship (emotionally, economically or otherwise), particularly in light
of Richard’s continued working relationship with her family.
Not only were family members instrumental in arranging mar-
riages, they also played an important role as arbiters in marital dis-
putes. For example, when Alice, wife of George Softley of Latton in
Essex, was beaten so badly that “she was thereby in peril of her
life,” then driven out of her house without a “kerchief on her head
nor clothes able to cover her body,” she immediately turned to her
son Richard for help. Richard, who lived “within a mile of her
house,” gladly took her into his home, but was not about to let the
incident between his mother and stepfather pass by without com-
ment. Soon after the incident, he appeared at his stepfather’s door,
accompanied by a host of his neighbours, and eager to convince his
angry stepfather “to keep and cherish his said wife like a woman.”
Richard’s subsequent bill in Chancery makes it clear that his attempts
to indoctrinate his stepfather with the high morals of chivalry were

6
Hanawalt, 198.
7
Norman Davis, ed., Paston Letters and Papers of the 15th Century (2 vols., Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1971–6), 1.342.
188 chapter five

an utter failure: not only did George almost slay Richard and his
mother; both suffered repeated threats and harassment from George
and his acquaintances.8
Alice was not the only medieval wife to turn to a family mem-
ber for help. In 1327, when John del Scoles beat his wife Ellen and
drove her from their home, her father retaliated by bringing a breach
of contract suit against his son-in-law to the manorial court at
Wakefield:
Thomas Assholf sues John del Scoles, saying that they agreed for half
mark of silver John should . . . find the said Ellen food and raiment . . .,
but he afterwards drove the said Ellen from his house and beat her,
so that she could not remain with him.
John brings a cross suit against Thomas . . . so that the said Ellen
[shall be] removed from the house, with her goods and chattel.
An inquisition to be taken in both matters.9
While the precise nature of the breach of contract suit is not clear,
it seems apparent that Thomas and John had previously agreed that
John would act charitably towards his wife and, in return, receive
a set sum of money. It was not precisely his abuse, then, but the
failure to keep his word that landed him in court. The record sug-
gests that Thomas bribed his son-in-law to stop beating his wife and
then was angry when the latter continued to do so.
Both Thomas Assholf and Alice’s son Richard had similar goals:
they hoped that an open discussion of the abuser’s behaviour might
help him to reform his actions and strive for a greater degree of
self-control. In the words of Alice’s son Richard, he wanted George
to abandon his “shameful and unmanly ways” and learn to “keep
and cherish his said wife like a woman.”10 Gentle reminders about
the precepts of male honour by concerned family members may have
been a common tactic employed in cases of marital violence. An
early sixteenth-century petition in Chancery exposes the sense of enti-
tlement the families of victims of abuse felt when it came to inter-
vention on this scale. When John Baker of London’s sister quarrelled
with her husband over “a matter of small substance,” he beat her

8
TNA C 1/162/46, Alice wife of George Softley of Latton previously wife of
Thomas Westwode of Latton, and Richard son of the said Thomas and Alice c.
George Softely of Latton (c. 1504 × 1509).
9
J.P. Walker, ed., Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield (Yorkshire Archaeological
Society Record Series, v. 109, 1945), 130.
10
TNA C 1/162/46.
 regulating marital violence 189

“so grievously that it was thought she would die.” Hearing of this
great injustice against his sister, John Baker immediately stepped in.
Taking Thomas, her husband, aside, he “entreated him with good
words to be a good and kind lover unto his sister and no more to
demean himself after such manner and he would be unto the said
Thomas as good a friend as he had been in times past.” The veiled
threat was not lost on Thomas: John soon found himself imprisoned
on suspicion of felony when Thomas’s brother William brought for-
ward the accusation.11
Brothers, in particular, hoped to shelter their sisters from violence.
A feeling of protectiveness spurred William, son of William Sivier of
Gilling (Yorks.), into action after witnessing an altercation between
his sister Cassandra and Richard the carter of Gilling. Despite his
good intentions, he injured his sister with his own knife during the
affray, while he escaped unscathed. Rather than saving his sister’s
life, as the coroner’s jury contended was his purpose, William’s inter-
vention resulted in the accidental slaying of his sister and his own
flight from an impending charge of homicide.12 Although the out-
come was very different from the original intent, William’s willing-
ness to mediate a fatal argument on his sister’s behalf illustrates his
devotion to his sister and his wish to shield her from harm. William’s
impulse was virtuous and may have been typical of a number of
brothers whose best intentions simply acerbated an already unpleasant
situation.
The courtship process perhaps best documents the role brothers
played in marriage. The York cause papers offer two examples of
what McSheffrey has described as “medieval equivalents of shotgun
weddings.”13 In both, brothers of the bride intervened when it became
clear that the young couples’ final objective might have been some-
thing other than marriage. The first, a case from the year 1334, is
recounted from the brother’s perspective. One August night while
John, son of Ralph of Painsthorpe, was awaiting Elisabeth de
Waldegrave in her father’s bakehouse for an appointed tryst, John
encountered instead Elisabeth’s brother Richard and his servant.
Armed with a sword, Richard easily persuaded John of the necessity

11
TNA C 1/287/47, John Baker, clerk (c. 1504 × 1509).
12
TNA JUST 2/214, m. 4.
13
McSheffrey, “ ‘I Will Never Have None Ayenst My Faders Will’,” 172.
190 chapter five

of a swift marriage with his sister. He then sent his servant into the
house to get Elisabeth. Moments later, she came out with her sister
Alice, and John and Elisabeth contracted marriage straight away
inside the bakehouse. Not long afterwards, John rebelled. Risking
the ire of his in-laws, he pled his case before the archbishop and
demanded an annulment, claiming coercion and physical violence.14
What is most revealing about this case is the sense of entitlement
that informs Richard’s testimony. In his statement, Elisabeth’s brother
implies that the wedding occurred without ever consulting Elisabeth
for her opinion on the matter. According to Richard, he learned
from an unnamed woman that John had frequent access to his sis-
ter and that he planned to come to the house that night with car-
nal intentions. Thus, of his own initiative, he met John at the
appointed time and place, drew his sword and strongly encouraged
an exchange of vows between the two. Nothing in his testimony
indicates that the plan was agreeable to his sister. He did not seem
to consider her opinion relevant in this matter. The fact that his sis-
ter showed no resistance to the idea, and that she later took the
case to court to have the marriage enforced, confirms that she may
have been in agreement with her brother anyway.
When asked if this level of interference constituted a coerced mar-
riage, Richard replied that he doubted whether a court might con-
strue his actions as sufficient force to turn a constant man and thus
liable to the church’s grounds for annulment. Richard also argued
that the marriage might not have taken place if he had failed to
intervene, a remark which raises a point of good significance. John
and Elisabeth were involved in an illicit, but regular affair that, if
made public, would have been regularised by the church without
the need for Richard’s intervention. The circumstances compel us
to return to a question first offered by Richard Helmholz in 1972:
“[s]hould a man forced to marry a girl for what society considers
to be good and sufficient reason be able to divorce her by pleading
force and fear?”15 Elisabeth’s brother thought not. He sincerely
believed that his actions were justified as those of a concerned brother

14
YBI CP. E 26, John son of Ralph of Painsthorpe (Pennysthorpe) v. Elisabeth de
Waldegrave (1334).
15
R.H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1974), 220.
 regulating marital violence 191

and that he had transgressed neither popular nor ecclesiastical reg-

ulations. As he saw it, he was ‘making an honest woman’ of his sis-
ter. Because the court returned a sentence in favour of John of
Painsthorpe, it seems likely that it believed Richard’s interference to
have been excessive. None the less, this case demonstrates the extent
to which one brother was willing to intervene in his sister’s marriage.
A similar case brought before the church over the course of the
years 1431/2 recounts how John Ward, servant of John Burdesall
(Yorks.), found himself in his master’s barn faced by his lover, Alice
Skelton, and an angry contingent comprising her brother Thomas
Holme, his wife, and two armed men.16 Alice’s brother, with his
hand upon his dagger, demanded that John marry his sister on pain
of death. John refused: he was already married and did not intend
to enter falsely into a second marriage, even when threatened with
a dagger and several axes. The case ended up in court as multi-
party litigation with Alice attempting to prove the legitimacy of her
claim to marriage. In response to John’s allegations of force, Alice’s
deponents instead maintained that his account was false and decep-
tive, intended to manipulate the system. The men who accompa-
nied Alice’s brother were not brandishing weapons to coerce John
into marriage; they were merely carpenters sporting the tools of their
trade. Further, John’s assertion that he was in the barn not to meet
Alice for a romp in the hay but instead to reap it was parried cun-
ningly by Alice’s deponents, all seven of whom testified that the field
in question lay fallow at the time of the encounter. Alice’s strategy
in court was obvious: if he was not to be proclaimed her husband,
she might at the very least hope to portray herself a victim and so
avoid any counter accusations of fornication.
Unlike the case of Painsthorpe c. Waldegrave, Alice’s brother seems
to have been responding to his sister’s call for help, rather than
working on his own initiative. His aggression, then, was motivated
less by a desire to legitimise an illicit union than by his sister’s ambi-
tion to be married. Their effort to disguise any evidence of force is
an indication that neither Alice nor her brother supposed that their
actions were defensible in any light. While force may have been
acceptable in some forms, this degree of coercion exceeded natural
bounds. None the less, these two cases are very instructive. Together,

16
YBI CP. F 200, Alice Skelton c. John Warde (1431–2).
192 chapter five

they suggest that women may have turned naturally to their brothers
for help in relationships gone awry, particularly when a little muscle
was required. If brothers were this willing to intervene in their sisters’
relationships at the courting stage, they were probably even more
amenable to the notion of stepping in to defend a sister from an
abusive husband.
The coroners’ rolls include a number of examples of situations in
which brothers willingly stepped in to protect their sisters from domes-
tic violence. A Northamptonshire coroner’s roll from the year 1315
recounts how John Pistor de Pilesgate met his death at the hands
of his wife’s brother. According to the roll, an argument arose between
John and his wife Emma while at their home. Intending only to cas-
tigate her for her misbehaviour, John beat his wife who then raised
the hue against him. Emma’s brother, hearing his sister’s cries, came
to the home of John Pistor and struck him in the head with an axe,
killing him. The roll reports that his sister assented to the death.17
The behaviour exhibited by Emma’s brother was, admittedly, an
extreme reaction to the abuse against his sister. One can only imag-
ine that this was not the first instance of physical violence between
Emma and her husband; or, at the very least, Emma’s brother per-
ceived the level of violence to be of a life-threatening nature. What
else might have motivated him to show up axe in hand? Regardless,
the method in which the coroner’s roll recounts the violence is an
indication that the neighbourhood was on the husband’s side: John
had every right to castigate his wife. If her brother disagreed, perhaps
he should have expressed his opposition without the axe.
Brothers may also have played an important role in the prosecu-
tion of spousal homicides. A Yorkshire assize roll records the case
of Thomas Pye of Yorkshire and the death of his wife in 1218.
According to the jury of twelve and the representatives of the four
neighbouring vills,
[w]hen Thomas’s wife’s brother came from his plough he found in
the fields of Nunburnholme a certain cloth, and when he went there
and lifted the cloth he found, beneath the cloth, his sister’s body, stran-
gled. When he realised that, he immediately raised the hue and cry,
and the village of Nunburnholme saw Thomas fleeing in the fields and
they pursued and took him near Nunburnholme churchyard. Thomas

17
TNA JUST 2/107, m. 7.
 regulating marital violence 193

was brought before the Justices and, asked when he was at his home,
said that he was there on the Wednesday next before the Purification
(30 Jan) and that he left his wife there, and then he went to the house
of Reiner of Garton on the Wolds and stayed there the whole night.
In the morning when he came he could not find his wife, and when
he knew that she was dead he made no suit touching her death.
Because he made no suit and, when suit was made by the village of
Nunburnholme touching her death, the same Thomas was taken fleeing
towards the church, and because the jurors and the 4 neighbouring
villages bear witness that he is guilty of his wife’s death, it is adjudged
that he has failed [in his defence] and he is hanged.
A certain Elena who was in this Thomas’s house has fled and is
suspected. Therefore let her be taken.18
The case of Thomas Pye and the woman known only as Elena
demonstrates that the evidence used to indict (and convict) a per-
son might be slim. While this jury may have been confident that
the evidence stacked against Pye was sufficient for a conviction,
another jury in the same situation, but without previous knowledge
of Thomas’s character and the relationship with his wife, might have
delivered an entirely different verdict. Given that planned homicide
was a crime of stealth, usually lacking witnesses to share the story,
even neighbours and family members, who were supposed to know
what happened, might not be entirely certain of the circumstances
surrounding a homicide. In the case of Thomas Pye, his low moral
fibre must have been of a sufficient degree to convince jurors of his
guilt. The death of Thomas’s wife also alerts us to the likelihood
that the wife’s family, represented here by her brother, may have
filled the role of the accuser in the prosecution of cases of domestic
violence, particularly after the decline of private appeals in the four-
teenth century.19 While presentments were supposed to be the product
of a shared discourse concerning crimes committed in the area since
the last visitation of the justices of assize, a slain wife’s family may
have operated behind the scenes, spearheading the attack against a
husband by ensuring that his name went forward as a suspect for
the crime. Given the nature of the surviving record, this kind of pre-
trial activity remains hidden from the modern observer; however,

18
TNA JUST 1/1053, m. 9d. Cited and translated in Doris Mary Stenton, ed.
and trans., Rolls of the Justices in Eyre. Being the Rolls of Pleas and Assizes for Yorkshire
in 3 Henry III (1218–19) (Selden Society, v. 56, 1937), 306–307.
19
On the decline of the appeal, see J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal
History, 3rd ed. (London: Butterworths, 1990), 574.
194 chapter five

such activity would have been a natural extension of the role of pro-
tector played by the wife’s brother.20
Opposition to family violence was not the preserve of the wife’s
natal family in this period. At times, even the husband’s family felt
inclined to champion the rights of victims of abuse. For example, a
coroners’ inquest from the county of Lincoln tells the story of Alice
Sely. When an argument broke out between her brother, Walter
Rake de Uslingham, and his wife Margery at their home, out of fear
Margery fled to her sister-in-law’s house for protection. Walter soon
tracked her down, and when Margery refused to obey him, he slapped
her, and then drew his knife. Sensing danger, Alice threw herself
between the two just as Walter leapt forward to slay his wife. Alice
was struck accidentally and against Walter’s will; she died immediately.21
Cases of spousal homicide in the royal courts of medieval Yorkshire
and Essex highlight the dual function of the family as both protec-
tor and accessory. Although spouse-murderers usually worked alone,
when they did call upon others for help, family members sometimes
filled this role (roughly ten percent of accomplices were family mem-
bers). In 1284 when John, son of Walter of Wennington (Essex), slew
his wife Christian, he did so with the help of his brother and another
man. Men of both Yorkshire and Essex often turned to their brothers
for help in cases of homicide;22 and thus, it was a natural reaction

20
Sisters may also have been called upon at times to protect women from their
abusive husbands, as in the case of Eleanor Brownynge from the diocese of London
who, with her husband in hot pursuit, fled to the home of her sister (LMA MS
DL/C/205, fos. 203r–204v, Eleanor Brownynge c. Alexander Brownynge, 1473).
However, the records present few cases of sisters rescuing sisters.
21
TNA JUST 2/67, m. 6. A Chancery bill from the late medieval period also
suggests victims of abuse may have turned to their in-laws for help. See TNA
C/1/82/87, Isabelle late the wife of Richard Vergeons c. Thomas Hyll, wiremon-
ger of London, brother-in-law of complainant (c. 1487 × 1503).
22
In the records of felony indictment for the county of York, of which there
were 9,294 victims of violent crimes, a male felon chose to work with his brother
to carry out a violent crime 420 times. The figure for Essex is substantially smaller,
but still in proportion to its size. Of the 1,713 victims of violent crimes in Essex
over the course of the late Middle Ages, 47 had violence inflicted upon them by
brothers. While both of these figures reflect only a small number of the crimes
committed in both counties in the late Middle Ages, the numbers are high enough
to suggest that brothers often supported each other in their actions, no matter how
violent. Moreover, these figures are considerably higher than are those for any other
family relationship. The only relationship to come close is that of father and son.
In the county of York, father and son worked together in violent crime on 206
occasions, while in Essex this pairing resulted in only 18 violent crimes. These
figures only represent cases presented before the king’s justices. If the figures were
 regulating marital violence 195

for John to enlist his brother’s assistance. The jury’s distaste of family
collusion is evident in the ruling on this matter: while John’s brother
managed to escape on his way to the Colchester gaol, a trial jury
sentenced John and Ralph de Lee to hang.23 A Yorkshire jury exhib-
ited similar abhorrence of family murders when dealing with the
1293 homicide of Alice, wife of Henry son of Maud of Bashall, by
her husband and his daughter Isabel. Not only was the act reported
to have been committed by night (a phrase often included to indicate
that it was a crime deserving of death),24 the jury saw fit to execute
Henry. His daughter probably would have met the same fate had
she not fled immediately after the fact. She was exacted four times,
then waived.25
Although rare, wives sometimes turned to their families for assistance
in spouse-murder. When Maud, wife of John son of Michael of Essex
(1271–2), determined to slay her husband, she turned to her brother
Roger and her sister Agnes to assist her in this act. Together they
slew him at night while he lay sleeping, buried him in the backyard
and fled the county.26 Wives may have turned more frequently to
their extended familia for support in petty treason. For example, in
the year 1392 when Margaret, wife of Robert Rasebek of York,
decided to do away with her husband, two of his servants helped
her to carry out the plan.27 Elisabeth, wife of Andrew Wantone, was
also assisted by two of her husband’s servants.28 When Alice, wife
of Simon of Flawith (Yorks.), slew her husband in 1235, her maidservant
was her accomplice.29 Servants who had grown up in the tense envi-
ronment engendered by marital disharmony probably came to sym-
pathise with the wife as another victim of autocratic household
governance.

expanded to include all assaults committed jointly by family members and prose-
cuted within the locality (e.g. at the sheriff ’s tourn), the numbers would most likely
be substantially higher.
23
TNA JUST 1/242, m. 75.
24
See p. 281 for a fuller discussion.
25
TNA JUST 1/1098, m. 5. A woman could not be outlawed because she was
not considered to be under the law in the first place. A woman might be “waived,”
however, a process which entailed all the same legal restrictions as outlawry. See
Henry de Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, ed. George E. Woodbine,
trans. Samuel E. Thorne (4 vols., Cambridge: Belknap Press at Harvard University
Press, 1968), 2. 428.
26
TNA JUST 1/238, m. 47.
27
TNA JUST 1/1145, m. 3.
28
TNA JUST 2/155, m. 21d.
29
TNA JUST 1/230, m. 4.
196 chapter five

None of these examples is exceptional. Medieval families some-

times assisted each other in their murderous deeds. In fact, the figures
for the York and Essex gaol delivery rolls over the course of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries reveal that the accused sought the
help of a family member in a considerable number of homicides.
The lowest participation rate comes from the Essex gaol delivery
rolls. Of the twenty-nine percent of cases of homicide committed by
multiple accused or an accused with an accomplice, eighteen per-
cent included family members. The Yorkshire gaol delivery rolls
reveal a significantly higher figure. Of the twenty-three percent of
homicides involving more than one accused or an accomplice, twenty-
seven percent were committed in collusion with a family member.30
None of the figures presented here includes spousal or service rela-
tionships. If we incorporate the latter figures into the equation, the
numbers are even higher. The Essex gaol delivery records demon-
strate that twenty-six percent of the cases involving accomplices or
second principals included family members, while the figure for the
Yorkshire gaol delivery rolls is thirty-four percent. When individuals
turned to others for help in perpetrating a murderous crime, a fam-
ily member seemed like a logical choice.
The pun ‘the family that slays together, stays together’ may be at
once trite and objectionable, but there is an undeniable truth imbed-
ded in this aphorism. Since death was the only penalty available in
the medieval courts for felony, entering into a murderous pact meant

30
When reading these figures there are a number of important points to keep
in mind. First, the numbers represent cases of homicides rather than victims of
homicides (hence, each case of homicide may have had multiple victims and accused).
If a homicide was recorded separately it was considered to be an individual case,
or instance of crime, regardless of the number of victims. However, in the process
of finding duplicate recordings of homicides within the rolls, if a case had the same
victim but the accused was different (as is often the case in the recording of sepa-
rate trials in gaol delivery rolls), it was still counted as only one case. Second, these
figures include all cases where there were multiple accused (that is, where no one
was identified as being more responsible for the crime than were the others), and
cases where there were accomplices (that is, those persons indicated as being sec-
ondary in responsibility). There is a somewhat artificial distinction that these records
make between these two categories; consequently, for the purposes of understand-
ing the role of the family in supporting murderous intentions, it seemed crucial to
eliminate this distinction and equate second principals and accomplices. This cate-
gory also includes those cases in which the accused was unknown, and yet the jury
was convinced that more than one person had committed the homicide. Finally,
being an accomplice involved a large range of possible crimes from “aiding and
abetting,” all the way down to “receiving knowingly.”
 regulating marital violence 197

that medieval families were putting their own lives in danger in order
to help one another. These findings fly in the face of conclusions
drawn by some historians about the pre-modern family. J.A. Sharpe
has argued that the English “family was not an institution which
made unique emotional demands upon its members.”31 Would families
have willingly laid their lives on the line for each other, if they did
not feel a strong sense of loyalty, if not love, for one another?
In terms of marital violence, these findings draw a number of con-
clusions. Chiefly, they emphasise the centrality of self-help as an
alternative to court settlements. Medieval Englishmen and women
often preferred to bypass the courts altogether and solve their prob-
lems themselves. Medieval courts were not only costly and time-con-
suming, but also notoriously ineffective. A suit of homicide or rape
was more likely to be acquitted than not, and litigants were well
aware of this fact. Why take a chance in court when there were
other options available? Additionally, with the inadequacies of the
royal justice system and its inflexibility in dealing with cases outside
the normal parameters of customary law, many conflicts simply fell
through the gaps, making self-help a popular alternative. By the end
of the fourteenth century, self-help was even more crucial in medieval
England as a method of dispute resolution because of the “percep-
tible slackening of royal control.”32 This shift mirrors the creation of
new courts outside the regular fora for dispute settlement, such as
the courts of Chancery and Admiralty, and the rise of private medi-
ation. Cases with no prescribed remedy were, for the first time,
recognised as tangible issues and provided with a solution. Yet, the
masses perceived the normal mechanism for dispute resolution as
being less and less effective. In order to grasp fully the range of alter-
natives available to a victim in the medieval era, then, it is necessary
to consider self-help as one possible strategy and realise that it worked
side by side with the common law. This perspective is pertinent to
a more profound understanding of family intervention in marital vio-
lence. Families were accustomed to resolving their own disputes in
the absence of official alternatives. Intercession in the marriages and
relationships of younger members may have been merely an extension

31
J.A. Sharpe, “Domestic Homicide in Early Modern England,” The Historical
Journal 24.1 (1981): 34.
32
Edward Powell, Kingship, Law, and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 124.
198 chapter five

of a widespread concept of ‘self-help.’ Finally, turning to one’s family

for help was a natural part of medieval life. In this climate, a victim
of domestic violence would not have hesitated to call on her (or his)
family for help, even if the proposed solution was a drastic one.

Beyond the Family: Communal Intervention in Marriage

Not all troubled wives had family members to turn to in situations

of abuse. The urban setting engendered an atmosphere in which
persons living apart from their families were likely to rely instead on
neighbours and friends for help in their domestic woes. Neighbours
frequently acted in loco parentis, exerting the same kind of pressures on
a couple as parents or family members would have in a rural setting.
The case of Whytell c. Beaumonde, drawn from the York cause
papers, confirms that neighbourly advice and intervention were neces-
sary and regular parts of the process of regulating medieval mar-
riages.33 According to Richard Dey of St Wilfrid parish (Yorks.), one
night Margaret Whyttell came to the home of Richard Bryg, knelt
before him and tearfully confessed that John Beaumonde had treated
her poorly. The two had exchanged words of betrothal and then
afterwards consummated their union, thus creating a valid marriage
in the eyes of the church (since the act confirmed the intention).
John, however, was unwilling to acknowledge publicly his marriage
and, conveniently, no one had been present to witness the exchange.
She went on to explain that John had made no effort to support
his new wife financially or emotionally since the joining, and that
they continued to maintain separate residences. Margaret was so dis-
traught over her potential spiritual endangerment that she turned to
her neighbour, Richard, for help. Between the two of them, they
immediately hatched a plan to encourage John into making their
marriage public.
One evening soon thereafter, John arranged to meet Margaret at
her home so that, as a dutiful wife, she could wash his hair. Afterwards,
they retired to bed. Richard, his wife, and another friend waited

33
YBI CP. F 75. It is important to note that in the case of Whytell c. Beaumonde,
we are presented only with Whytell’s side of the story. The depositions of Beaumonde’s
witnesses do not exist, nor is there a sentence.
 regulating marital violence 199

until the couple had withdrawn and extinguished the candles. Then,
with weapons in hand, Richard led the small contingent into Margaret’s
bedchamber where they met a shocked and surprised John, and
demanded what he was doing there. Given no other choice, John
replied that he had good license to be there because he had recently
betrothed Margaret. As proof, Richard called for a renewed exchange
of vows. Convinced by Whytell’s armed neighbour and his com-
panions, John and Margaret proceeded to exchange vows before
them, acknowledging publicly their commitment to each other. Richard
then extracted from John a promise that he would not mistreat
Margaret in the future, and John immediately pledged his word.
Two weeks later, Margaret was in court, trying to prove the valid-
ity of her marriage.
Richard Bryg was not an outstanding neighbour. Neighbours, par-
ticularly elderly men, expected to play a role in the marriages of
those in their locality. In her study of late medieval London, Shannon
McSheffrey has argued that the “concern of senior men with moral
probity went beyond the patriarchal household and the master-servant
relationship into the community as a whole,” and that “as the patri-
archs of the community, [they] felt a responsibility to police rela-
tionships.”34 This sense of paternalism may have led some men into
danger. For example, a coroner’s roll from the county of Leicester
recounts the story of a barker named Giles of Owston, neighbour
of John Draper and his wife, in the year 1369. Hearing great dissension
and anger from their home, Giles took it upon himself to call on
the couple, in the hopes of mitigating John’s anger and pacifying
their argument. His good intentions were a poor shield. John stabbed
Giles to death with his knife.35
Not only was Giles expected to participate informally in the super-
vision of his neighbours’ marriages, he may even have felt a strong
sense of responsibility to do so. Indeed, the church perpetuated the
expectation of neighbourhood involvement in marriage. In July 1440,
the case of Thomas Marr of Huggate came before the Dean and
Chapter at York. In Thomas’s case, adulterous activities lay at the
heart of his floundering marriage. The record reports first that he

34
McSheffrey, “Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval London Civic Culture,”
250–1.
35
TNA JUST 2/53, m. 3.
200 chapter five

“maltreated” his wife Agnes and “expelled her from his home.” The
expulsion, however, occurred subsequent to his adultery with a woman
named simply as Emmotte whom he had previously sworn to abjure.
Since his wife’s departure, Emmotte had moved into his home and
behaved as his mistress. The Dean and Chapter laid the blame for
the fiasco entirely at the feet of Thomas. He was not only ordered
immediately to cease his relationship with Emmotte, it was decreed
also that he should process around the parish church of Huggate on
three Sundays with bare shins and feet, clothed only in his shirt,
and carrying a candle weighing one pound in his hand in the manner
of the penitents. Moreover, in the same format he was required to
process around the cathedral church at York, offering a candle weigh-
ing one pound of wax on both sides of the far places of the highest
altar on the day his penance was completed. Finally, the church
required him to abjure any further sin on pain of twice the usual
penalty. Concerning Agnes, the court commanded Thomas to treat
her “honourably.” The two were then asked to submit themselves
to local arbitration by two squires because of “the disagreements and
extralegal deeds between Thomas and Agnes his wife,” in the hopes
of repairing some of the damage inflicted by Thomas and resolving
some of their differences.36
The example of Thomas Marr and his wife Agnes is revealing.
Rather than a simple monition for good behaviour, here the court
was attempting to present a viable solution to the problem. Thomas
and Agnes had reached a point in their marriage where they could
no longer resolve their differences without outside intervention. If
they were a married couple today, marriage counselling would be
an obvious solution to their problems. The court’s request that they
undergo arbitration suggests that counselling of this genre is not a
modern invention. Of course, the mention of “extralegal deeds”
reveals that there may have been more to the story. It is unfortu-
nate that the records provide too little detail to discern the nature
of arbitration. While this is the only case uncovered in this investi-
gation where arbitration as a solution to marital discord was required
by the court, judges might have advised couples regularly to partic-
ipate informally in arbitration. In the case of Thomas and Agnes,
the solution is reassuring. The court recognised the earmarks of an

36
York D & C AB/1, fo. 97.
 regulating marital violence 201

impending divorce a mensa et thoro and understood that serious mea-

sures were required in order to avoid this path.

Spousal Homicide and the Parish Priest

In her study of trespassory ravishment, Sue Sheridan Walker has

observed the frequency with which husbands accused clergymen of
abducting their wives. She contends that these men “may have been
acting in their capacity of spiritual advisor”—essentially counselling
women to leave abusive marriages.37 If a victim of abuse had no
family to turn to, who better than the local priest, dedicated to the
care of souls, to rescue her from an unhappy relationship?
Cases of marital violence present numerous examples of clerical
involvement in spousal disputes, adding substance to Walker’s assump-
tion that counselling victims of abuse was a significant aspect of the
care of souls. For example, one somewhat cryptic entry in the
Yorkshire assize rolls hints that the church’s position as mediator in
cases of domestic disputes involved its local representatives.
Odo the Chaplain was found killed on Barmby Moor and on the same
day in which he was killed he ate in the house of Gregory of Pollington.
Gregory has come and is not suspected of the death and therefore let
him be under sureties to answer if anyone wishes to say anything
against him, and let the sheriff have the names of the sureties. The
village of Wilberfoss said that Stephen of Wilberfoss beat his wife and
she said that he killed the priest, and therefore let Stephen be attached.
He has come and is not suspected by the jurors. Therefore let him
be under sureties to stand to right etc if anyone etc and let the sheriff
have their names.38
Although the representatives of Wilberfoss did not make explicit the
connection between Stephen’s abuse of his wife and his intentions
towards the priest, one possible explanation is that Odo had taken
it upon himself to meddle in family affairs and either to counsel
Stephen to reform his behaviour, or his wife to abandon the marriage.
Otherwise, Stephen’s ill treatment of his wife would not have been

37
Sue Sheridan Walker, “Punishing Convicted Ravishers: Statutory Strictures and
Actual Practise in Thirteenth and Fourteenth-Century England,” Journal of Medieval
History 13 (1987): 245–6.
38
TNA JUST 1/1053, m. 9d. Cited and translated in Stenton, 312.
202 chapter five

sufficiently pertinent to the entry to warrant inclusion. Wife beating

was not satisfactory evidence in and of itself to substantiate a mur-
derous character. The decision of the scribe not to spell out the
implications of Stephen’s abusive behaviour is also enlightening. If
intervention by priests in the disputes of couples within their parish
was a familiar feature of late medieval society, the association between
the abuse and Odo’s death required no explanation.
Surviving indictments of petty treason by poison characterise some
clerics as willing intruders in unhappy marriages in an even more
insidious manner. When John of Wink died inexplicably in 1334 in
the village of North Frodingham (Yorks.), a presentment jury indicted
both his wife Julianne and Hugh of Alne, the local vicar. The jury
accused the couple of knowingly giving John poison to drink, thus
bringing about his death in a deceitful manner.39 The cleric’s per-
ceived interest in this relationship immediately raises some impor-
tant questions. Was Hugh in fact Julianne’s lover? Although the
records do not indicate any amorous relationship, priests in the
medieval period were notorious for failing to adhere to the vow of
celibacy.40 It is equally plausible that Hugh was a concerned priest,
whose intrusive actions in the marriage of Julianne and John prior
to John’s death led jurors to think the worst. In the minds of a
medieval jury, it may have been logical for a wife and cleric to con-
spire together using poison. Given the church’s firm stance on blood-
shed and violence, it may have been reasonable to assume that a
cleric would prefer a non-violent method of homicide, such as poi-
son, if he were going to engage in the act at all.
Hugh of Alne was not the only man of the cloth accused of aid-
ing a petty traitor. Eight of the eighty accomplices to husband-killings
in York and Essex were described as being members of the clergy
(two vicars, two canons, one provost, three clerics). These findings
argue in favour of a local role played by priests in dysfunctional
marriages. Anxious neighbours undoubtedly reacted in inappropriate
ways to a priest’s intervention. Repeated close contact with an abused
wife may have been misinterpreted, especially in situations in which
a husband died inexplicably soon thereafter. This conjecture may

39
TNA JUST 3/78, m. 11.
40
See James Brundage, “Sin, Crime and the Pleasures of the Flesh: the medieval
Church judges sexual offences,” in The Medieval World, ed. Peter Linehan and Janet
L. Nelson (London and New York, Routledge, 2001), 294–307.
 regulating marital violence 203

explain the frequent association between petty treason, poison and

clerics: poison is the one method medieval jurors were incapable of
proving or disproving. The best evidence against a cleric, then, may
have been his active involvement in a man’s marriage before his
death. In his study of medieval expectations of clerical masculinity,
R.N. Swanson addresses popular associations between clerics and
wives, and the hostile response of laymen. He writes,
[t]he collusion between clerics and women to civilize and Christianize
medieval lay men could easily be interpreted as a conspiracy against
male control over the family and domestic life: the clergy could be
attacked as having too close attachments to women, encouraging their
spirituality and acts of charity without reference to their husbands,
thereby undermining male power.41
Medieval laymen largely distrusted clerics. Swanson argues that this
sentiment derived from the uncertain gender of the clergy; while ‘vis-
ibly male,’ medieval society expected the clergy to renounce their
masculinity upon taking their vows. Thus, many features of medieval
masculinity, such as sexual intercourse with women and violent alter-
cations, were not supposed to be part of the clerical lifestyle. The
relationship between laymen and clerics, then, was complicated by
the lay refusal to believe that a man might successfully deny his mas-
culinity.42 Consequently, men expected the worst from clerics, whether
as his wife’s lover, or her confidante. Indictments of this sort may
represent collective animosity towards meddling priests. How better
to communicate dissatisfaction with the church’s prying policies than
to indict its representatives in the royal courts? Here, it is worthy
of note that a cleric indicted in the royal courts did not face the
same penalty as lay felons. Priests might claim benefit of clergy and
have their case brought before the bishop’s court where the penal-
ties were much less stringent. Accordingly, presentment in no way
endangered the life of the cleric, and in most cases, would have pre-
sented little more than an inconvenience. Abetting a vengeful wife

41
R.N. Swanson, “Angels Incarnate: Clergy and Masculinity from Gregorian
Reform to Reformation,” in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. D.M. Hadley (New
York: Longman, 1999), 170. Sharon Farmer makes a similar observation about the
close relationship between clergy and wives. See Sharon Farmer, “Persuasive Voices:
Clerical Images of Medieval Wives,” Speculum 61 (1986): 517–43.
42
Farmer, 167. In his study of defamation suits, Derek Neal addresses this sub-
ject in a similar way. See Derek Neal, “Suits Make the Man: Masculinity in Two
English Law Courts, c. 1500,” Canadian Journal of History 37 (2002): 1–22.
204 chapter five

was not the only instance when English people used the royal courts
to punish clerical transgressions. Late medieval communities fre-
quently levelled fictionalized accusations of rape at priests; these alle-
gations represent an attempt by the laity to penalise lecherous clerics
in violation of their vows of celibacy.43 Swanson makes a similar
observation, noting that clerical sexuality was always “available for
use as an anticlerical weapon by the threatened males.”44 With such
resentment against priests and discomfort with their place in medieval
life, it is not surprising that some clergymen fell victim to accusa-
tions of petty treason.
Overt hostility towards clergymen and the role they played in mar-
ital disputes landed at least one clergyman in prison. The Chancery
bill of John Carvare, clerk chancellor to the archbishop of York, in
the very early sixteenth century tells the story of Joan, wife of Guy
Dawny, who appeared before the archbishop of York to request a
judicial separation on the grounds of cruelty. Although the court
ordered the sequestration of Joan, her husband quickly tracked her
down and attempted an out-of-court settlement by dragging her
home. John Carvare, as clerk to the archbishop, was the official of
the court appointed to escort Joan back to her temporary residence
in York after this debacle. Angry and looking for revenge, Guy sued
a case of trespass against Carvare. Faced with imprisonment, and
without a superior to whom he could appeal (the archbishop rather
inconveniently died during this process), Carvare was forced to turn
to the court of Chancery for help.45 Unable to prevent his wife from
continuing her suit against him, Guy laid blame on the man he saw
as being (at least partly) responsible for his trouble. Carvare’s mis-
fortune is evidence of lay hostility towards meddling clerics: marital
disputes were a matter for “real men.”

43
Edward Powell, “Jury Trial at Gaol Delivery in the Late Middle Ages: The
Midland Circuit, 1400–1429,” in Twelve Good Men and True: The Criminal Trial Jury
in England, 1200–1800, ed. J.S. Cockburn and Thomas A. Green (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1988), 102–3; Robin L. Storey, “Malicious indictments of clergy
in the fifteenth century,” in Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in Honour of Dorothy M. Owen,
ed. M.J. Franklin and Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995),
221–40.
44
Swanson, 171.
45
TNA C1/295/4, John Carvare, clerk chancellor to Thomas late archbishop
of York (c. 1504 × 1509). Certiorari.
 regulating marital violence 205

Indictments and the Community

Spousal homicides in the coroners’ rolls, in particular, offer another

kind of evidence that is relevant to understanding communal atti-
tudes about marital violence. The county coroner investigated each
death, whether accidental, natural, or deliberate. His investigation
relied primarily on the verdict of the inquest jury—a group of twelve
men from the community and four representatives of the neigh-
bouring vills, whose responsibility it was to report what had hap-
pened, and decide who, if anyone, was to blame. Unfortunately,
their reports, as transcribed by the coroner’s scribe, are generally
terse, unrevealing and exceptionally formulaic. A typical entry runs
as follows:
The jury present on oath that on the Sunday next before the feast of
the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the second year of the
reign of King Richard II [1378], at Ryther, Roger Uttyng of the same
feloniously slew William Medde of Ryther by piercing his head with
an arrow so that he immediately died. And the said Roger immediately
fled. His chattels are none. Viewed by Thomas of Lockton, coroner.46
An entry like this may seem so formulaic as to be of little use to
the social historian. Yet, such an evaluation of the evidence contained
in coroners’ rolls would be foolhardy. The formulaic nature of the
rolls is not an obstacle, but a reliable tool. Because the majority of
cases follow a set structure, those that do not conform immediately
take on significant meaning, revealing a great deal about village atti-
tudes as represented by the jury. For example, like most entries in
the coroners’ rolls, an inquest held in 1344 on a suicide victim is a
concise record of events, with one important exception. The roll
entry states: “Alice, wife of Stephen Souter of Great Broughton, went
to the river running through Great Broughton and, of her own free
will, she drowned herself because of quarrelsome words between her-
self and her husband.”47 Inquests into cases of self-killing rarely offer
evidence into a suicide’s motivation. The obvious exceptions are those
where the jury identified a suicide as non compos mentis: but, even
here, the records do not address circumstances that may have exac-
erbated the victim’s mental state. Why, then, should this coroner’s

46
TNA JUST 2/233, m. 5.
47
TNA JUST 2/212, m. 19.
206 chapter five

roll have mentioned a marital dispute? The record does not name
him as an accomplice to her death, and there is no sign that he
encouraged or aided her in any way. Why would jurors have men-
tioned this quarrel unless, because they knew Stephen well and were
capable of drawing some personal conclusions about this matter, they
somehow felt that he was partly to blame for her self-imposed death?
Even minor deviations from the norm are revealing. Most cases
of homicide report simply that the accused “feloniously slew” ( felonice
interfecit) the victim, and omit the particulars of the homicide. However,
in the death of Margaret, wife of Stephen Calihorn, from the year
1285, the way the victim died was significant. The indictment states,
at home in Childene (Essex), Margaret was “trampled” and beaten
so severely by her husband that she languished for three days before
dying.48 Because Stephen fled the scene of the crime and was later
outlawed, a more complete record of the crime was crucial. If he
was to return to stand trial at a later point, this information was
adequate to try his case. The image of a woman trampled to death
by her husband is sufficiently gruesome evidence to incline any jury
towards a conviction. Similarly, in the homicide of Margaret, wife
of Henry of Blackmore (Essex), by her husband in the year 1272,
the indictment omits altogether the phrase “feloniously slew.” Instead,
the eyre roll notes that Henry beat Margaret with a staff so badly
that she died three days later.49 Once again, this is a very subtle
deviation from the formula, but this version was surely more mean-
ingful and effective than others in conveying the scandalous nature
of the offence.
The inclusion of superfluous detail in particularly appalling cases
of domestic homicide is evidence of the strong sense of outrage expe-
rienced by the victim’s locality and its desire to secure a conviction.
For example, in the 1355 case of Richard Grayne of Fangfoss (Yorks.),
taken for the death of his wife Ellen, the indictment appears to have
addressed the means by which she died in order to sway the trial
jury’s convictions. According to the written indictment, Richard “felo-
niously placed his wife Ellen in a fiery oven where she was burned,
and from this incident she afterwards died.”50 The jury probably

48
TNA JUST 1/242, m. 90d.
49
TNA JUST 1/238, m. 53d.
50
TNA JUST 3/141a, m. 16.
 regulating marital violence 207

included Richard’s specific actions in the indictment to account for

the lapse in time between the quarrel and his wife’s death (that is,
in order to prove that her death was, indeed, the direct result of his
actions). The detailed and graphic nature of the homicide and the
deliberate use of the term felonice, despite its unusual context, sug-
gest that the community’s representatives were determined to see
Richard hang.
The death of Agnes, wife of John Dryvere of Coggeshall (Essex),
in 1371 was also one in which the lengthy duration of the homi-
cide required explanation. The coroner’s inquest jury offered a very
explicit account of Agnes’s unfortunate death.
[ The jury] say on their oath that John Dryvere son of Emma de
Badewe, husband of the said Agnes, on Palm Sunday in the above-
mentioned year led the said Agnes his wife to a certain field called
Westfield in the aforesaid Coggeshale to the said well for the sheep in
that field and there he beat her in the head and neck and so maltreated
her that he almost killed her; and John Dryvere, believing her (Agnes)
to be dead, he placed her entire body in the well except her neck and
head so that Agnes lay there in the water in that way until the next
Friday which was Good Friday, the said John Growel found her lying
in the said way and on that day he notified the neighbours in the
area who came and took her from the well and brought her to the
home of Margery Russh in the said vill and there she lay living, and
she languished until the next Thursday in the week of Easter on which
day she died from her wound. And so the said John Dryvere feloniously
slew the said Agnes.51
The coroner’s jury was at pains here to formulate an account that
would prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that John’s actions were
the direct cause of Margery’s death, and thus the court should treat
her death as culpable homicide. John fled and did not return to
stand trial for his crime; therefore, the outcome of this case remains
a mystery. None the less, the jury’s revulsion at John’s treatment of
his wife is apparent in the very full detail given in the indictment.
If the coroner’s jury had not been so eager to ensure John’s con-
viction, it would not have constructed such an airtight case. The
jury dictating this indictment represented the community of the vic-
tim: these men may have been neighbours or friends of the victim
or her family. With such a despicable case of domestic violence, the

51
TNA JUST 2/35, m. 5/2.
208 chapter five

jury’s determination to prevent John Dryvere from ever returning

home is not surprising. To this end, a coroner’s inquest jury might
shape an account of spousal homicide in a number of ways to com-
municate its views on the fate of the accused. A detailed record of
the crime accentuating its gruesome and sordid nature must have
gone a long way towards securing a conviction.

Juries, Verdicts and Encoded Communication

A study of deviance from the norm is not the only method of expos-
ing communal perceptions of marital violence. The formulaic lan-
guage of the records also provides powerful perception into the beliefs
of the jurors. In a recent work, John Bellamy remarks that, apart
from observing an occasional overlap in personnel, historians have
generally disregarded the relationship between indicting and trial
juries.52 As a result, any communication between the two has been
under-valued. Bellamy’s work fits in well with current theories con-
cerning the composition of medieval juries. Despite more traditional
perceptions, trial jurors were rarely drawn from the ranks of those
who lived closest to the scene of the crime, thus they could not, in
fact, have been self-informing.53 If trial juries were not self-inform-
ing, then they must have looked elsewhere for evidence.
Bellamy turns to formulas used in felony indictments to explain
this conundrum. He contends that presentment jurors inserted a spe-
cialised vocabulary of key words and phrases into their indictments
in order to communicate their fears and perceptions to trial jurors.
When jurors of presentment wished to convey their suspicions in
particularly egregious cases of felony and also highlight the shock-
ing nature of the crime, they deliberately included these signals, or
phrases of “afforcement,”54 to incline trial jurors towards a guilty
verdict. By noting specifically that a crime took place “by night”

52
J.G. Bellamy, The Criminal Trial in Later Medieval England: Felony before the Courts
from Edward I to the Sixteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
53
B. W. McLane, “Juror Attitudes towards Local Disorder: The Evidence of the
1328 Lincolnshire Trailbaston Proceedings,” in Green and Cockburn, 36–64. J.B.
Post and Edward Powell have made similar observations. See J.B. Post, “Jury Lists
and Juries in the Late Fourteenth Century,” in Green and Cockburn, 65–77; Powell,
78–116.
54
Bellamy, 29.
 regulating marital violence 209

(noctanter), “on the king’s highway” (in regia via), or that the accused
was “common” or “notorious,” presentment jurors imbedded clues
in the indictment to warn trial jurors that this was a crime com-
mitted by stealth and worthy of the full penalty of the law.
When applied to spousal homicide, it is necessary to expand the
vocabulary of juridical dialogue even more. As Frances Dolan observed
in her examination of legal representations of conjugal homicides in
the early modern period that
[t]exts about petty treason dwell on the violation of domesticity and
marital intimacy entailed by this crime, which generally occurred in
the central locations of marital life—the dining table and the bed. The
formulation of legal separation as a divorce a mensa et thoro, “from table
and bed,” reinforces the significance of these furnishings as sites of
intimacy and estrangement.55
Nowhere is this more apparent than in royal records of felony indict-
ment for later medieval Yorkshire and Essex. On the Monday after
the feast of St Bartholomew the Apostle in the year 1363, William,
servant of John Smith of Rillington (Yorks.), Emma, daughter of
Thomas of Rillington, and Joan, wife of Roger Rudbrade, together
carried out a villainous plot to murder Joan’s husband. Their indict-
ments focused on the sordid nature of the crime, which took place
in the dark of night while Roger was lying asleep “in his bed” (in
lecto suo).56 When Margaret, wife of John Trilly the younger of Waltham
(Essex), decided to do away with her husband in the year 1378, she
also chose the middle of the night, while her husband was in bed
sleeping, to carry out her plan.57 Inclusion of the precise location of
a crime not only underscored the deceitful and conspiratorial nature
of the offence, it also stressed the violation of the solemn bonds of
marriage. A couple’s bed was idealised as a place of trust and inti-
macy; the murder of one’s husband in bed was a decisive breach of
this bond.
The phrase in lecto suo materialises in various accounts of petty
treason, cropping up in at least six of the eighty-one cases for both

55
Frances E. Dolan, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England
1550 –1700 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 29. T.A. Green makes a sim-
ilar observation. See Thomas A. Green, Verdict According to Conscience: Perspectives on
the English Criminal Trial Jury 1200 –1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1985), 58.
56
TNA JUST 2/217, m. 17.
57
TNA JUST 3/168, m. 4.
210 chapter five

counties.58 Five of the six cases also note that the crime took place
at night, while one of the six indictments further appends the damn-
ing statement that the wife had not only feloniously slain her hus-
band, but had “murdered” (murdravit) him as well. In particularly
deplorable cases of petty treason, indicting juries may have felt that
the surest way to guarantee a conviction was to include as many
terms or phrases of afforcement as possible. Vocabulary highlighting
violations of the marriage bed in cases of petty treason was just as
popular as focusing on the breach of trust between husband and
wife who shared a table.59 Allegations of poison through food or
drink arose in six of the eighty-one cases of husband-killing appear-
ing in this study. An additional five cases of petty treason noted
specifically that the crime took place in the home of the victim.
Although this was not a transgression of table and bed per se, men-
tion of the marital home as the location of the crime made a sim-
ilar point. Together, phrases of afforcement that spoke specifically
to the defilement of the marriage bond number seventeen out of
eighty-one cases, or twenty-one percent. This is a sufficiently high
percentage to conclude that medieval jurors were shocked and appalled
at the nature of “these violations of domesticity, vividly figured
through disrupted sleep and contaminated food.” In particular, the
indictments spotlight “the dependent who should share the bed and
table, and solace and nurture her husband’s body, [but instead]
abuses intimacy to invade and destroy that body.”60

58
The inclusion of “in lecto suo,” or the equivalent phrase “dormienter” (while sleep-
ing), in cases of indictment for petty treason was not exclusive to these counties,
however. A cursory glance through the coroners’ rolls offers a variety of other cases.
To offer a few examples, this phrase appears in the following cases of petty trea-
son: TNA JUST 2/25, m. 8 (Derby); TNA JUST 2/26, m. 1 (Derby); TNA JUST
2/34, m. 12 (Gloucester); TNA JUST 2/83, m. 2d (Lincoln); TNA JUST 2/150,
m. 2 (Salop); and TNA JUST 2/163, m. 1 (Stafford).
59
Although Bellamy chose to focus on the most universal phrases of afforcement
(such as noctanter, in regia via, etc), Cynthia Neville’s study of the northern law courts
suggests that regions of England may have created their own phrases of afforcement.
Due to its proximity with the Scottish border, the north of England in the late
Middle Ages was plagued with incessant cross-border crime. As a result, northern
juries adapted their own circumstances to the English legal system by painting these
ordinary felons as traitors, in order to ensure a high conviction rate. See C.J. Neville,
“The Law of Treason in the English Border Counties in the Later Middle Ages,”
Law and History Review 9 (1991): 1–30.
60
Dolan, 30.
 regulating marital violence 211

An even more compelling argument to support the hypothesis that

“representations of the violated home” were perceived chiefly as an
element of petty treason lies in the fact that the phrase in lecto suo
occurs in only one indictment concerning wife-killing.61 In general,
terms or phrases of afforcement in cases of uxoricide were of an
entirely different nature. Indictments were far more likely to describe
wife-killers as having “murdered” their victims (three indictments for
petty treason included this phrase, while it surfaced in eight indict-
ments for wife killings). With the exception of the one case of in lecto
suo, noctanter, murdravit, and in regia via were the only phrases of
afforcement used in uxoricides in either Yorkshire or Essex. This
finding confirms that wife killing did not stand out from typical homi-
cide in the way that husband killing inevitably did. It is notewor-
thy, however, that twenty-two out of 152 cases (or fifteen percent)
of uxoricides from York and Essex employed these phrases, indicat-
ing that, even if wife killing was not perceived as a violation of mar-
riage in the same way as was petty treason, it was still a repugnant
and sometimes inexcusable crime.
If the jury of presentment was eager to communicate its opinions
about the fate of the accused, members of the coroners’ inquest jury
were even more anxious to impart their perspectives. Coroner’s
inquest juries had a greater interest in seeing the accused punished,
in great part because inquest juries were composed of people whose
lives were affected most by the conviction or acquittal of the defendant.
An acquittal permitted a felon to continue living in his village. More-
over, Barbara Hanawalt has observed that jurors had a variety of
important considerations. “If they convicted and condemned to death
one of their fellow villagers, they risked starting a vendetta. The dead

61
Dolan, 31; TNA JUST 1/235, m. 19. The rolls describe one other victim as
lying in bed; however, the case does not follow the typical pattern and as such
does not really belong to the same category. In this Yorkshire case from the year
1268 or 1269, Agnes wife of Robert Pymme was not lying in bed asleep; rather,
her husband was lying in bed with her and the two were reported as having been
in the midst of an argument when Robert picked up a knife and slit his wife’s
throat. This death was a violation of the marriage bed, as Dolan would suggest,
but the crime does not bear witness to the kind of stealth and deception typical of
phrases of afforcement, and thus is not a clear example of the use of in lecto suo in
order to incline the petty jury against the accused. See TNA JUST 1/1051, m. 9d.
212 chapter five

man’s family might indict one of them for a felony . . . [e]ven if the
jurors acquitted a known felon and returned him to the community,
they had made the point that future bad behavior might result in
hanging and everyone would be watching.”62 Local jurors were
required to negotiate fine moral distinctions in a variety of unusual
circumstances; but they also had to make the best decisions for the
future of both themselves and the vill. With such a heavy burden
on their shoulders, inquest juries must have been impatient to com-
municate their views.
This assumption is borne out by the evidence of the coroners’
rolls. Despite the meagre number of husband-killings found in the
coroners’ rolls for Yorkshire, it is striking that four of the eleven
were described as having occurred by night, while only one out of
forty-one uxoricide indictments included this phrase. Of the seven
daylight husband-killings, one occurred on the king’s highway, while
the records describe none of the uxoricides in this manner. Likewise,
one case of petty treason was committed while the defendant’s hus-
band was sleeping in bed, while none of the wife-killings included
this phrase. Taken as a whole, over half the inquests involving hus-
band-killings in the Yorkshire coroners’ rolls were recorded in a man-
ner that would incline a trial jury towards a conviction; only two
percent of uxoricides received the same treatment. Gaol delivery rolls
also employed phrases of afforcement in cases of petty treason for
the same county. Their appearance in these records, however, is
quite low in proportion to the number of cases. Evidently, local
jurors were most resolved to secure a conviction in transgressions of
the gender hierarchy. Patriarchs sought to keep the values of their
neighbourhoods on the straight and narrow.
Phrases of afforcement in felony indictments did not guarantee a
conviction. None the less, Bellamy’s statistical analysis reveals that
the inclusion of these terms in an indictment significantly increased
the likelihood of conviction. To offer an example, in early-fifteenth-
century cases in which the accused was described as ‘common,’
Bellamy notices a conviction against acquittal ratio of one to three
(in similar cases without this designation the rate was merely one to
eight).63 Cases of spousal homicide from the counties of York and

62
Barbara A. Hanawalt, “‘Good Governance’ in the Medieval and Early Modern
Context,” Journal of British Studies 37 (1998): 254.
63
Bellamy, 30.
 regulating marital violence 213

Essex demonstrate a significantly higher ratio. In six out of the eleven

cases of husband-killing employing phrases of afforcement that actu-
ally came to trial,64 three women were acquitted, two were burned
and one was hanged.65 The final verdicts in the eight out of twenty-
two cases of wife-killing in which terms or phrases of afforcement
were employed, reveal that three men were acquitted, four were
hanged, and one was convicted only (boasting a marginally higher
ratio than that for petty treason).66 It seems clear that spousal homi-
cide was a sufficiently outrageous crime in its own right that even
those juries who were not from the locality needed little encour-
agement to produce a higher rate of conviction.
Indictments for petty treason often noted attempts by the accused
to conceal evidence of his or her actions by hiding the body of the
deceased. This crucial detail, interpreted by juries as a sign of stealth
and premeditation, was included in order to accentuate the deceit-
ful nature of the crime and to convince the trial jury that the defen-
dant had committed a crime worthy of capital punishment.67 In
Yorkshire and Essex, this phrase was not restricted to petty treason,
although it occasionally appeared in such cases. The inquest jury
probably intended the account of the slaying of William Storour of
Hirst (Yorks.) by his wife, who then buried him under the stable
before fleeing, to convince the trial jury of her amoral character.
The incorporation of the terms noctanter and murdravit into the indict-
ment laid against William’s wife strongly support this perspective.68

64
The courts of medieval England were notorious for their inability to appre-
hend alleged felons. Bellamy describes the problem best when he writes, “in the
more lawless decades of the later middle ages, a felon could consider himself dis-
tinctly unlucky if he were captured by the authorities.” J.G. Bellamy, Crime and
Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages (London and Toronto: Routledge,
1970), 201.
65
The record offers no clues to suggest why jurors sentenced Beatrice wife of
John Foweler of Ottringham to hang for her crime (rather than burn at the stake).
It is entirely possible that this was some sort of a qualitative assessment by the jus-
tices, implying that she was guilty of the crime, but not “as guilty” as some oth-
ers. However, it is important to take into consideration the equally likely possibility
that this may simply have been a scribal error. See TNA JUST 3/199, m. 5.
66
The man who was convicted (but reportedly not hanged) was Sir Roger de
Benton, Essex (TNA JUST 1/232, m. 9d). In all likelihood, his status as a gentle-
man saved his neck from the gallows, confirming the well-known late medieval
adage, “Pore be hangid by the neck; a rich man bi the purs.” Barbara A. Hanawalt,
Crime and Conflict in English Communities 1300–1348 (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1979), 54.
67
See also Green, 58.
68
TNA JUST 2/242, m. 5d.
214 chapter five

Indictments of wife-killing might also contain this damning detail.

For example, in a case from the year 1393, the coroner’s roll recounts
the tale of John Thorpe of Sharlston (Yorks.) who not only beat his
wife to death with a staff, but also threw her body into the river to
hide the evidence of his crime.69 In this case, the jury may have had
ulterior motives in mentioning concealment of the body: tossing a
body into the water was a permanent way of hiding the corpse. In
the absence of a body, the case against John was weak and defec-
tive at best. The indictment’s generously detailed account commu-
nicated the presentment jury’s opinions and may have helped to
shape the trial jury’s findings concerning John Thorpe.
The inability of phrases of afforcement to guarantee a conviction
illustrates that trial jurors sometimes dissented with the opinions
expressed by indicting jurors. Given the comparative social stand-
ings of indicting versus trial jurors, this finding is difficult to under-
stand. Local notables were far more likely to have participated in
the administration of the law as presenting rather than trial jurors.70
This pattern is well documented for Essex, in particular. Many of
the jurors involved in the Essex sessions of the peace during the late
fourteenth century were wealthy landholders or independent small
farmers whose family names were associated with landmarks within
their home communities.71 Quite simply, the elite believed juries of
presentment exercised an onerous responsibility. Not only did they
have to identify who in the village had exceeded the limits of local
controls and required royal intervention, they also took the lead in
determining the outcome of a case. With this kind of clout, it seems
odd that trial jurors, whose single task was to deliver a final verdict,
should have possessed the arrogance to overturn the preliminary
judgements of their social superiors, particularly when they were
working from a diminished knowledge of the events. Yet, their deci-
sion may not have been as straightforward as one might think. Many
of those acquitted by the courts probably were innocent. Defendants
might spend anywhere from a few months to several years in prison
awaiting gaol delivery; during that time, information might be brought
forward casting new light on the case. Trial jurors may also have

69
TNA JUST 2/250, m. 1d.
70
McLane, 42.
71
Elisabeth Chapin Furber, ed., Essex Sessions of the Peace, 1351, 1377–79 (Essex
Archaeological Society, v. 3, 1953), 33.
 regulating marital violence 215

opted for acquittal simply because they did not know whether the
accused was guilty. If trial jurors did not, in fact, hail from the sur-
rounding area, they may not have possessed the confidence of pre-
senting jurors in a guilty verdict. Because death was the only penalty
for felony, theirs was an important decision.72 When confronted with
a sincere and remorseful display by the accused, the trial jury might
well have preferred to acquit.
The case of John Gelles of Cold Cotes demonstrates just how
significant the disparity between the opinions of two juries might be.
According to two separate entries in the Yorkshire coroners’ rolls,
in the year 1364, an argument arose between John Gelles and John
Lanerok of Ormesby. The disagreement reached such a feverish pitch
that Gelles’s wife Agnes stepped between the two in order to quell
the argument, but she quickly found herself on the wrong end of
Gelles’s knife. She died soon after, peacefully lying in her husband’s
arms.73
The coroner’s inquest jury made it very clear that Agnes’s death
was an accident; Agnes received a blow meant for someone else,
which according to the jurisprudence of the times, was a clear case
of excusable homicide.74 Excusable homicide was not, in fact, a felony
and the defendant received an automatic pardon from the king.
Moreover, the fact that Gelles’s wife died in his arms emphasises
her husband’s remorse. In the opinion of the coroner’s inquest jury,
Gelles did not intend to kill his wife and so was not accountable for
the act. This decision, however, is entirely at odds with that of a
third account appearing in the gaol delivery rolls for Yorkshire some
time later. While much less descriptive, the indictment is enlighten-
ing in its lack of detail. None of the events leading up to Agnes’s
death is included in the record. Instead, the roll states merely that
John Gelles of Cold Cotes feloniously slew his wife Agnes.75
Exactly why there should be such a disparity between the two
accounts is impossible to determine; yet, given the similarity of Gelles’s
case to others from the period, it is possible to speculate on the

72
McLane, 56–64.
73
TNA JUST 2/217, m. 10 and TNA JUST 2/218, m. 10d. This appears in
almost identical form. It is likely that one roll was merely a copy of the other. This
would explain why the case appears more than once without any significant change.
74
Thomas Green notes that “slaying without malice was not felonious” (89). See
his discussion of accidental homicide, Green, 88–93.
75
TNA JUST 3/145, m. 41.
216 chapter five

motives of both juries. The demise of Agnes wife of John Gelles was
far from exceptional in the late medieval period. Death while attempt-
ing to pacify an argument was not as rare a way for English wives
to meet their death as one might think. The Yorkshire coroners’
rolls alone include at least two similar cases.76 Yet, in both cases,
the wife met her death at the hands of the husband’s enemy, rather
than the husband himself. The intention of the coroner’s inquest
jury probably was to accentuate the similarities between John Gelles’s
dilemma and that of these two other grieving husbands in order to
prove to the courts that this was indeed an excusable homicide,
deserving of an acquittal. The real question, of course, is what exactly
were Gelles and Lanerok fighting about that so intimately involved
John’s wife? Perhaps Agnes was the source, rather than the media-
tor, of the argument. Perhaps she had defended Lanerok, a lover,
rather than her husband. This line of thinking may help us to under-
stand why the trial jury felt so strongly about this case that it entered
a record of the death so much at odds with the sentiments of the
coroner’s jury.

Attitudes towards Petty Treason

The use of phrases of afforcement by juries in indictments of domes-

tic homicide very much reflects Roderick Phillips’s contention that
spousal homicide in medieval and early modern Europe was “one
of the most drastic forms of informal divorce . . . more akin to vol-
untary widowhood than to divorce.”77 He notes that husbands and
wives adopted a gendered approach to spousal homicide. “It would
not be surprising to find that wives were more frequently guilty of
spouse murder than husbands. Men had many more options other

76
Agnes wife of John Berier of Bedford of Bulmer was struck with a hatchet
during an argument between her husband and Richard Stephenson of Hildershelf
(TNA JUST 2/218, m. 31). Similarly, during an argument between her husband
and John son of John of Shark, Margaret wife of John of Sandalworth was killed
(TNA JUST 2/211, m. 10). There are many other cases similar in nature where
the victim and accused were not related.
77
Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), 306.
 regulating marital violence 217

than murder when faced with oppression, provocation, or simple

incompatibility; husbands could more easily leave, evict their wives
from the house, or force some sort of compliance by sheer physical
strength.”78 At first glance, this statement paints a harsh image of
an infrequent and unusual phenomenon. Phillips seems to be insin-
uating that domestic homicide, especially for husband-killers, was a
cold, calculated crime rather than the unintentional result of a mar-
ital dispute spiralling out of control. His argument is not without its
strengths. In a society in which women were wholly reliant on their
husbands for economic support and social representation, and their
social interaction was restricted to the household environment, sep-
aration was sometimes not a realistic option in the event of an
unhappy marriage. Similarly, English wives were very much aware
that if a man was killed and his murderers never found, his wife
would not suffer the kind of deprivations she might otherwise encounter
in a separation. In these circumstances, spousal homicide may have
seemed like the most viable option.
Phillips’s contentions find support in phrases of afforcement. Jurors
employed terms or phrases of afforcement in a significant number
of cases (thirty-three out of 233 cases of spousal homicide in York
and Essex, or 14 percent); this figure is an indication that medieval
jurors shared Phillips’s morose perspective. Royal records of felony
indictment for both counties emphasise the self-serving nature of
some cases of petty treason, especially those in which accomplices
were involved. Some indictments even suggest that husband-slayings
were the work of hired assassins. When two men feloniously slew
Thomas Kirkyn of Tickhill (Yorks.) in the year 1369, his wife Ellen
was included in the formal charge. The records report that not only
did she consent, aid and abet the crime, she “led” (conduxit) the men
to do it.79 At least three other cases involving charges of petty trea-
son employ similar vocabulary. In cases of uxoricide, on the other
hand, this assumption is absent entirely from the records. How bet-
ter to assert pre-meditation than to argue that the wife had actually
hired men to carry out the crime? The case of Alice Brounrobyns-
doghter reveals that jurors equated the procurement of felons with
the felony itself. According to the Yorkshire coroners’ rolls for the

78
Phillips, 307.
79
TNA JUST 2/217, m. 43.
218 chapter five

year 1340, John Tathum was the one to actually carry out the slay-
ing of Robert Wasshebergh, Alice’s husband, at Alice’s procurement.
The indictment stresses, however, that she aided and abetted him.80
A later account of the same crime in the Yorkshire gaol delivery
rolls credits Alice with the murder itself, stating only that she felo-
niously slew him.81
The records reflect Phillips’s assertion that wives were more likely
to plot against their husbands. Uxoricides were the only spousal
homicides in which jurors included evidence of ‘hot blood’; in each
of these situations, the slaying followed hard on the heels of a nasty
domestic dispute. In the year 1257, Yorkshire jurors reported that
an argument between Simon Shepherd of Rudston and his wife Alice
ended when Simon plucked an axe from the corner of the room
and struck his wife with it in the head.82 When Bella, wife of John
Fuller of Tadcaster (Yorks.), met her death at the hands of her hus-
band in the same year, it was also in the midst of a vicious mari-
tal dispute. On their way home from the tavern at Tadcaster, the
two were crossing the bridge over the Wharfe River when John,
angered with his wife, threw her into the river, where she drowned.83
In both cases, such a full account was necessary. The wounds inflicted
by Simon on Alice did not cause the latter’s immediate death. She
languished for two weeks after the incident, finally dying confessed.
Because the period between the incident and her death was so pro-
tracted, it was critical for the jury to demonstrate that Simon’s actions
had indeed been the direct cause of her death. In the case of Bella
wife of John, the need for an elaborate account is apparent. Despite
John’s flight, an investigation had not yet uncovered Bella’s body.
Without a corpse, a detailed record of the jury’s suspicions was
required because those suspicions were the only evidence that a crime
had taken place.84

80
TNA JUST 2/210, m. 1.
81
TNA JUST 3/78, m. 28d. Philippa Maddern reports a similar case in her
study of fifteenth-century East Anglia. Margery Andrewes was indicted for com-
plicity in the murder of her husband Walter, although her lover Thomas Tatenell
actually carried out the crime. Nevertheless, the court sentenced Margery to burn
as a traitor, as if she herself had committed the crime. See Philippa C. Maddern,
Violence and Social Order: East Anglia 1422–1442 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 104.
82
TNA JUST 1/1109, m. 30d.
83
TNA JUST 1/1109, m. 11.
84
In the case of John Fuller of Tadcaster, it is also possible that the jury intended
such a lengthy account to provide him with grounds for a suitable defence upon
 regulating marital violence 219

Indictments of petty treason were more likely to include meticu-

lous detail. The inquest jury fully appreciated the shock value of
these particulars, and realised that a little embellishment might be
used more effectively than stock phrases to ensure conviction and
thus permanently repel the offender from their community. For exam-
ple, a homicide indictment from the year 1346 narrates the story of
John of Bingham (Yorks.). While he was kneeling and praying before
the altar in the church of Aberford in Yorkshire one day, three men
entered the church and struck him with a sword and two knives in
the chest, head and back so that he immediately died. The records
go on to declare that his wife Hawis not only abetted the felony,
but also procured the men who carried it out.85 Had the inquest
jury reported that this crime took place by night, on the king’s high-
way and by a common, notorious felon, they might not have received
the same judicial response that a full-length entry of this crime, brim-
ming with images of Becket’s murder at the Cathedral, would pro-
duce. The inclusion of shocking details of this vile conspiracy and
sacrilegious bloodshed, whether they actually occurred or not, was
the closest the inquest jury could come to tying the noose themselves.
Because both the church courts and Chancery deemed the use of
weapons in domestic violence to be an excessive use of force, inclu-
sion of details in indictments regarding weapons employed in spousal
homicide may be intended to clarify whether the death resulted from
a cold and calculated design or a moment of sudden fury. For exam-
ple, the indictment of Henry Bruning of Clapham (Yorks.) in 1293,
who was reported to have slain his wife Maud in their home in the
vill of Clapham with a piece of firewood, marks her death as hav-
ing been precipitated by a heated argument rather than months of
planning.86 The indictment of Henry of Wensley (Yorks.) in 1351,
who shot his wife with a bow and arrow, has a different flavour

his return to stand trial. As historian Nigel Walker has noted, royal justices often
equated drunkenness with insanity, such that a court might not hold an intoxicated
man more accountable for his actions than a lunatic. See Nigel Walker, Crime and
Insanity in England. Volume One: The Historical Perspective (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1968), 39. Naomi Hurnard makes a similar argument. See Naomi D. Hurnard,
The King’s Pardon for Homicide Before A.D. 1307 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969),
168–9. Bearing this in mind, the mention of the detail that Fullo and his wife were
returning from the tavern at the time of the incident was likely to prepare the court
for the pardon he was hoping to receive.
85
TNA JUST 2/214, m. 5.
86
TNA JUST 1/1098, m. 1d.
220 chapter five

about it entirely. A man does not, in sudden anger, remove himself

to a distance, draw an arrow, take aim, and kill his wife.87 Spousal
homicides of both types offer up a plethora of household implements:
breadknives, hatchets, staves, even the occasional hammer or fork.
Husbands were far more likely to strangle or drown their wives, but
the numbers demonstrate only one significant trend: only women
were ever accused of poisoning.88 A common modern conception is
the belief that murderesses compensated for their physical weakness
by resorting to the use of poison.89 Poison levels the playing field,
empowering the physically weak and allowing wives, in their capac-
ity as preparers of food, the opportunity to execute scandalous designs.
Frances Dolan has argued that husband poisoning is simply a rep-
resentation of the “violated home”; contemporary fears of domestic
mutiny came to life when women abused their position in the house-
hold by polluting their unsuspecting husbands’ food.90 However,
despite modern conceptions, the medieval records of royal indict-
ments do not reveal any such preoccupation. Only a very small num-
ber of women faced accusations of husband poisoning. A study of
all records of felony indictments for both counties produces six cases
of women put to trial on charges of having poisoned their husbands.
All six are confined to fourteenth-century Yorkshire, implying that
either poison was more readily accessible in the county of York, or
quite simply, northerners were more suspicious.
Perhaps most fascinating about these indictments is that in five of
the six cases of husband-poisonings, the indicting jurors named an

87
TNA JUST 2/215, m. 21.
88
One case of uxoricide included allegations of poisoning, however it is significant
that the indictment tied poison once again to a woman’s involvement, this time a
midwife. When Joan, wife of Simon the Constable, died, a Yorkshire jury of pre-
sentment indicted her husband of seeking the assistance of Beatrice, the local mid-
wife, to poison her. Simon the Constable was an unusual criminal for the period.
He stood accused not only of spousal homicide, but also of abducting the wife and
goods of John Danethorp and robbing the priory of Swyne. He chose not to respond
to the allegations altogether, instead submitting himself to peine forte et dure. See TNA
JUST 1/1101, m. 41.
89
Lawrence Stone alludes to this belief in his article “Interpersonal Violence in
English Society 1300–1980,” Past and Present 101 (1983): 27; see also Kathleen E.
Garay, “Women and Crime in Later Mediaeval England: an Examination of the
Evidence of the Courts of Gaol Delivery, 1388 to 1409,” Florilegium 1 (1979): 92.
Richard W. Ireland notes an association between women and poison based on the
midwife’s monopoly on abortifacients during the Middle Ages. See Richard W.
Ireland, “Chaucer’s Toxicology” The Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 84.
90
Dolan, 31.
 regulating marital violence 221

accomplice. If poison was assumed to be the wife’s weapon of choice

because it required no feats of physical strength, why would a wife
have needed an accomplice (or two, as in the case of one husband-
killer aided by both her daughter and another man)? The case of
Maud, wife of William of Monkton (Yorks.), sheds some light on
indictments of this type. When Maud’s husband died suddenly in
the year 1332, both she and his grandson, John, came under imme-
diate suspicion. Although the records offer little indication of why
they were suspected, the economics of inheritance may have played
a role in jurors’ conclusions. Both Maud and John stood to gain the
most from William’s death: Maud through her dower rights and
John (presumably) by right of descent.91 William’s demise probably
belongs to that category of deaths in which the cause was unknown
but highly suspicious (a common occurrence in late medieval England
considering the limited scope of contemporary medical knowledge).
In these cases, the coroner’s inquest jury put forward the most rea-
sonable explanation for the death. In William of Monkton’s case,
poisoning by his wife and grandson may have seemed like a ratio-
nal explanation.
Death at the hand of a relative was also the jury’s assumption in
the case of Robert of Alta Ripa. After a fortnight on his deathbed,
when the Yorkshire man finally succumbed to death, his wife and
her daughter and a man (whose relationship to the family was not
stated) fell victim to allegations of poisoning.92 It is difficult to under-
stand why the indicting jury determined that Richard had been poi-
soned. Perhaps Robert himself uttered this accusation before his
death. Perhaps a neighbour witnessed preparation of the fatal meal.
It is equally likely, however, that the inability of local medical experts
to diagnose Robert’s condition and a history of bad relations informed
the jury’s decision in this case. Regardless, the trial jury was uncon-
vinced; they chose to acquit all three defendants.
Indicting a woman for poisoning her husband was easy enough
to do; convicting her of the crime was something else entirely. While
many such claims sprung up in the absence of evidence, proving
death by poison was well nigh impossible. Neither coroners nor med-
ical experts were able to perform an autopsy to establish poison as
the clear cause of death, even if they had had the technology to

91
TNA KB 27/92, m. 21d.
92
TNA JUST 3/76, m. 33d.
222 chapter five

carry out blood analysis. The medieval church forbade physicians to

engage in post-mortem human dissection because it considered the
human body analogous with the temple of God; its desecration endan-
gered the human soul.93 Not surprisingly, then, all six accused husband-
killers and their accomplices pleaded innocence and were acquitted
of the charges.
Cases of poisoning lead to an obvious conclusion. At six cases,
later medieval women rarely fell victim to formal accusations of poi-
soning their husbands (the six cases represent little more than seven
percent of husband-killings). Poison was simply not a weapon of
choice; or at the very least, the coroner was incapable of detecting
it. In fact, more often than not, when the records mention a weapon,
they accused wives of wielding a hatchet or axe, both items of domes-
tic use, but not ones restricted to women. Thus, while poison may
seem like the ideal weapon for the murderess, it was not widely used
in real life.
The juries’ inclination to apply phrases of afforcement more fre-
quently in cases of petty treason points to a number of conclusions.
First, England in the later Middle Ages was more tolerant of mar-
ital violence when it was directed towards wives. This finding is not
surprising. Historians have long argued that there existed “strong
social and cultural inhibitions against the use of force by women as
a means of settling disputes.”94 J.B. Given’s study of violent crime
in thirteenth-century England exposes this widespread sentiment in
the kinds of verdicts handed down to women accused of homicide.
A woman stood a much greater chance of being sent to the gallows
for homicide than did a man (33.3 compared to 18.3 percent).95 The
frequent use of suggestive vocabulary in indictments for petty trea-
son only strengthens this argument. Second, these findings indicate
the nature of wife-killings in general did not shock or outrage jurors,

93
It was not until the mid-fourteenth century that the church began to relax its
strict position on human dissection; and yet, until the late-fifteenth century only the
Italian universities engaged in human dissection. See Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski,
Not of Woman Born: Representations of Caesarean Birth in Medieval and Renaissance Culture
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990), 30–2; see also Agostino Paravicini Bagliani,
“The Corpse in the Middle Ages: the Problem of the Division of the Body,” in
The Medieval World, ed. Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (London and New York:
Routledge, 2001), 334–36.
94
J.B. Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth Century England (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1977), 137.
95
Given, 137.
 regulating marital violence 223

nor were they determined to ensure a husband’s conviction. The

more frequent inclusion of these key phrases in inquests for petty
treason implies the reverse. Jurors were more scandalised by cases
of petty treason than wife-killing, and often sought to ensure that
husband-killers would not escape punishment. These findings confirm
what other historians have proposed about contemporary social per-
spectives. Jurors did not regard wife abuse as exceptional; husband
abuse broke all the rules.
These attitudes about spousal homicide echo contemporary beliefs
about the role of the patriarch in the English community. If senior
men were expected to embroil themselves in their neighbours’ vio-
lent marriages in order to safeguard the morality of the village, surely
this same expectation was applied to these men in their role as jurors.
While petty traitors and wife-killers underwent the same judicial
process, an early fifteenth-century petition concerning a wife-killer
from the rolls of parliament demonstrates that medieval families made
a moral distinction between the two. The petitioners wrote:
That where one John Carpenter, of Birdham, in the Shire of Sussex,
husbandman . . . saying to Isabel his wife, that was of the age of six-
teen year, and had been married to him but fifteen days, that they
would go together on pilgrimage, and made to array her in her best
array, and took her with him, from the said town of Birdham, to the
town of Stoughton in the said shire, and there in a wood he smote
the said Isabel his wife on the head, so that the brain came out, and
with his knife gave her many other deadly wounds, and stripped her
naked out of her clothes, and took his knife and slit her belly from
the breast down, and took her bowels out of her body, and looked if
she were with child; and thus the said John murdered horribly his
wife: of the which horrible murder . . . the said John was indicted . . .
according to your Law, till the said John Carpenter was outlawed of
the said murder, and now graciously for the same cause arrest, and
in your Prison called the King’s Bench. Please it to your righteous-
ness to consider the horrible murder foresaid, and by authority of this
your high Court of Parliament to ordain, that the said John Carpenter
may be judged as a Traitor, in eschewing of such horrible murders
in time coming.96

96
Rotuli Parliamentorum: ut et petiones, et placita in Parliamento temporo Edwari R. I [ad
finem Henrici VII] (London: n.d., c. 1767–77), 4: 447.
224 chapter five

Which factor did locals find most repugnant: her age, the short dura-
tion of the marriage, or the husband’s disrespectful post-mortem dis-
section of her body? Regardless, the detail and the unusual decision
to petition parliament make it clear that the community was out-
raged by her death. By demanding that the common law treat
Carpenter as a traitor for his crime, petitioners emphasize that this
was no ordinary wife-murder. The killing of a wife was horrific; petty
treason, however, was scandalous. To hold a wife-killer accountable
for treason illustrates that the definition of the crime may have been
more elastic than previously imagined. Rather than a simple trans-
gression of the established hierarchy, medieval families may have
interpreted treason in a much more personal way. A gross violation
of communal ethics in a manner that was so utterly offensive to vil-
lage custom and way of life, may have been understood as treason
against the community.

Conclusion

Spousal abuse was one of those grey areas of medieval law. To hit
one’s wife was acceptable as long as it was not excessive; yet, the
term ‘excessive’ was subject to an unusual degree of interpretation.
With such ambiguity, domestic violence more often required com-
munal, not legal, intervention. Most important, these records confirm
that families and communities in general had strong feelings about
marriage and marital violence. Not only were families willing to
intrude in a heavy-handed fashion in the inception of marriages, that
supervisory role persisted after the exchange of vows. In the absence
of a formal setting responsible for the resolution of disputes of this
nature, parents and siblings, as well as members of the larger com-
munity, who witnessed a marriage out of control, were willing to
act as arbitrators. In fact, victims of abuse may have felt a natural
inclination to turn to their families for help, even when the resolu-
tion was as desperate as spousal homicide. Brothers, especially, con-
sidered themselves responsible for the well-being of their sisters. As
patriarchs of the village, many brothers and neighbours of abuse vic-
tims believed they had a social responsibility to intervene and uphold
the moral probity of the neighbourhood in which they lived. At the
very least, these records demonstrate a widespread repugnance for
marital violence and a chivalrous desire to protect women from
 regulating marital violence 225

abuse; the coroners’ rolls demonstrate, however, that jurors thought

only certain women deserved protection. England was a patriarchal
society: the male head of the household had the right to guide and
discipline the members of his own household, and medieval wives
did not have the right to question that authority independently. If
a man was incapable of governing his household and himself, it was
the responsibility of respectable men from the community to inter-
vene. A woman who solved the problem herself through murder,
then, not only failed as a wife, but as a woman and subject of the
community in which she lived. Medieval English society was founded
on a delicate balance of gendered expectations: spousal violence, in
all its various manifestations, threatened that balance. Families, neigh-
bours and friends interceded, not only out of a concern for the vic-
tim of abuse, but also because intervention was necessary to hold
together the values of the community.
 CHAPTER SIX

SCOLDS, PERSONAL LIABILITY,

AND MARITAL VIOLENCE

The Book of the Knight of Tour Landry offers medieval men some advice
on how to deal with wives who talk back in the exemplum of “The
Obedience of Wives.” One day, when returning from a fair, three
merchants made a wager together to test their wives’ obedience by
commanding each of them to perform a senseless and ridiculous task.
The winner would receive one penny from each of the others. When
the first man asked his wife to leap into a basin that he set before
her, she paused to ask why. In response, “her husband struck out
with his fist and gave her two or three great blows.” At the second
merchant’s home, his wife greeted the request in much the same
way; the merchant “took a staff and beat her badly.” At the home
of the last merchant, the men took a short reprieve in order to share
a meal. When the third merchant asked his wife for salt, she mis-
understood his demand and instead leapt onto the table, as she
believed he had requested, because she was “afraid to disobey.”
When asked why she had done this, she explained her confusion
and added, “I have to do your bidding, as much as is in my power,
even if it brings injuries to both you and me, and I would rather
the both of us came to harm than that I should disobey your com-
mand.” The three merchants decided that it was no longer neces-
sary for her to perform the basin test because she had proven her
absolute obedience to her husband, “and she was not beaten as were
the other two wives that would not do their husbands’ bidding.”1
The image of the good wife presented in this exemplum is in many
ways unrealistic. Given the nature of the literature, this should not
come as a surprise. Exempla were not precise reflections of reality so
much as an enhanced reality, to demonstrate effectively and briefly

1
Joan Young Gregg, ed., Devils, Women and Jews: Reflections of the Other in Medieval
Sermon Stories, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 117–8. Gregg
has appropriated this exemplum from Thomas Wright, ed., The Book of the Knight of
Tour Landry (Early English Text Society, o.s. v. 33, 1906), 33.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 227

a point of Christian doctrine. In this respect, we should not assume

that exempla are factual reflections of social mores, or that what
justified abuse in sermon stories should translate into real life situations.
Yet, exempla were not divorced from reality. These didactic stories
were replete with “distinctive human beings functioning in clearly
recognizable social contexts,” and as such helped to bring theology
to life through contemporary social issues.2 Parish priests recounting
these stories to entranced crowds maintained that these were authentic
accounts of actual events, a factor that must have lent credibility to
the stories and made them more personally meaningful. The medium
itself was doubtless the most effective means of conveying standard
ecclesiastical beliefs to the laity because of the familiar language and
inherent entertainment value: the performative aspects of the exempla
made the moral memorable. Thus, the representation of women in
this medium is significant to an understanding of what the laity actu-
ally learned about marriage from the representatives of the church.
That the medium should have presented such a hierarchical and
invective vision of marriage, then, is all the more significant. The
exemplum emphasised the importance of obedience in a senseless and
irrational manner; any woman or man put in a similar position surely
would have questioned the motives of such a pointless request. If
Chobham and Januensis, discussed at some length in Chapter One,
seem to depict marriage as a hierarchy of near equals who correct
each others’ moral failings, this exemplum promptly corrects that false
impression and restores to marriage a master-servant relationship.
Further, the beatings received by the two disobedient wives were
severe. Neither husband reprimanded with a slap or even harsh
words, but rather with weapons and “great blows.” How could such
a minor infraction of a husband’s authority result in this degree of
violence? What kind of measure was this? Again, it is important to
realise that the story of the three merchants was a caricature rather
than an accurate representation of reality. However, even if we allow
a degree of colouring, its underlying message is clear. A wife’s duty
is to obey; if she does not, her husband will respond with physical
force. This story is an explicit acknowledgement of the gender
hierarchy and the embarrassment a wife’s willingness to voice her
disobedience might present to her husband.

2
Gregg, 13.
228 chapter six

Late medieval society was preoccupied with disobedient wives. The

goal of this chapter is to examine the extent to which this fixation
permeated late medieval life. The literature of the period abounds
with representations of disobedient wives: from the nagging wives of
popular song to Noah’s wife of the passion plays. Images of the dis-
obedient wife as shrew infuse all these works of shared culture, indi-
cating at once the popularity of this figure as comic relief and as a
warning sign to women in society against adopting similar behaviour.
In each genre, there is an association between verbal misbehaviour
and physical abuse. This link is demonstrated best in Chaucer’s Wife
of Bath, the archetypal shrew of the later Middle Ages. Her prologue
presents physical violence as a remedy to a wife’s vocal disobedience;
moreover, as this chapter will discuss, the wife may even have expected
and enjoyed this response. The message implicit in all these tales
echoes that of the exemplum of “The Obedience of Wives”: a good
wife is quiet and compliant. The literature only condones domestic
violence when a wife provokes it through her ill manners.
Literary representations of disobedient wives, like Uxor Noe or the
Wife of Bath, reflect a very real concern in late medieval society. A
growing anxiety over social misbehaviours in fourteenth and fifteenth
century England, specifically concerning scolding women, parallels
the literary motif of the shrew. A scold was usually a woman who
engaged in repeated instances of disruptive behaviour by being overly
vocal and aggressive. She did not resemble entirely the disobedient
wives of medieval literature: a scold might be married, but was not
always or even usually. However, the scold, through her failure to
conform to social expectations of gendered behaviour and her refusal
to lead a quiet life, was the focus of a growing hostility directed
towards women who voiced their opinions too loudly. Antipathy to
the female voice was a well-established and vital component of the
medieval literary tradition of misogyny in both ecclesiastical and
secular circles; some of the most fundamental literary works of the
period drew freely from this tradition. The most obvious example,
of course, is the story of Eve and its medieval interpretation. Lynda
Boose has argued that Eve’s transgressions were enormous in
themselves, because “[t]hrough Eve’s open mouth . . . sin and disorder
entered the world.”3 Eve first demonstrated her incapacity to use

3
Lynda Boose, “Scolding Brides and Bridling Scolds: Taming the Woman’s
Unruly Member,” Shakespeare Quarterly 42 (1991): 24.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 229

God’s gift in a wise and intelligent fashion when she chose to respond
to the serpent’s queries. Her verbal sins multiplied when she abused
her power once again by persuading Adam to join in her disobedience.
In both these verbal transgressions, Eve’s fault is located in her misuse
of speech, a characteristic destined to be the hallmark of womanly
conduct in medieval literary culture.4 Parish priests exploited women
who indulged in idle chatter and used their tongues to harass and
scold as an opportunity to remind their parishioners of St Paul’s
admonition that “women should keep silent.” That the courts chose
to present women for this unruly behaviour at the end of the Middle
Ages does not afford proof that they had hitherto adhered con-
scientiously to Paul’s recommendation. Rather, this chapter will sug-
gest that the conditions of the later period simply offered more
opportunities for social control and less forbearance of unruly conduct.
Changes in attitudes towards female vocal aggression did not take
place in a social vacuum. The evidence of manorial and borough
courts confirms Marjorie McIntosh’s recent conclusions that the four-
teenth century was a key period in the regulation of social misbe-
haviours of all kinds (disturbers of the peace, eavesdroppers, gamblers,
nightwalkers, gossips). The concerns of a highly moral elite as well
as the creation of municipal byelaws against activities of this nature
brought social misbehaviour into the village courtroom. In this respect,
the responsibility for overseeing local harmony shifted from the
unofficial hands of family and friends in the early part of the period
to the legal community after the mid-fourteenth century. This change
may have had a similar affect on marriage. It is notable that those
cases of marital disharmony appearing in the manorial and borough
courts, discussed in Chapter Two, all belong to the fourteenth cen-
tury. Perpetrators of marital disharmony dealt with in an unofficial
capacity prior to the fourteenth century suddenly found themselves
presented and fined by manorial and borough courts as the century
wore on and new ideas concerning personal liability emerged. This
transition in local governance was part of a widespread trend in the
regulation of social behaviour across England in which local authorities

4
Chiara Frugoni offers a comprehensive analysis of the reception and interpre-
tation of the story of the Fall. See Chiara Frugoni “The Imagined Woman,” in A
History of Women: Silences of the Middle Ages, ed. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, trans.
Clarissa Botsford (Cambridge: Belknap Press at Harvard University Press, 1992),
358–62.
230 chapter six

took a more active role in the administration of the law. This devel-
opment may be the key to understanding the transition from medieval
to early modern expectations of the family.
The intolerance of the late medieval period for social misbehav-
iour, but particularly for disobedient or overly vocal women, almost
certainly had an effect on marriage. The use of the kind of litera-
ture, art and song discussed in Chapter One to shame women into
embracing appropriate conduct meant that any man whose wife did
not conform shared her disgrace. Men were responsible for the behav-
iour of their wives: a scolding wife, then, was a humiliation not many
men would willingly have endured. Given that physical ‘chastise-
ment’ was the remedy most often recommended for behaviour of
this nature, how could such an important change in attitudes about
the behaviour of women not have had an affect on marriage and
domestic violence?

Taming a Shrew

The Wife of Bath shares many similarities with Uxor Noe. In fact,
the character of Uxor Noe may have even formed the basis for the
Wife of Bath; Melvin Storm argues “the similarities are so numer-
ous that a reader versed in Chaucer must surely feel he is encoun-
tering, for better or for worse, an old acquaintance.”5 Both Uxor
and Alison share a comparable outspokenness and obstinacy in their
relationships with their husbands that, even today, rarely fails to pro-
voke laughter from their audiences. The story of the Wife of Bath,
however, supplies a much different perspective of the dangers of
allowing a wife too free a rein. While Uxor threatens Noah’s author-
ity as patriarch in the marriage, she never actually gains the upper
hand. Alison of Bath offers a glimpse of the other side of the coin.
In her numerous marriages, Alison makes it clear that she is the one
who wears the breeches. It is only her fifth husband who challenges

5
Melvin Storm, “Uxor and Alison. Noah’s Wife in the Flood Plays and Chaucer’s
Wife of Bath,” Modern Language Quarterly 48 (1987): 306. Storm notes that the story
of Noah and his wife as it is depicted in the mystery cycles must have been well
known to Chaucer because he includes a reference to this in “The Miller’s Tale”:
“‘Hast thou not heard,’ said Nicholas, ‘also / The sorrow of Noah with his fellowship, /
Ere that he might get his wife to ship?” (3538–40).
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 231

her in this respect. Her constant scolding and independent ways earn
her repeated physical abuse. Chaucer’s interpretation of domestic
violence is what is most relevant to our investigation. His writing
insinuates that a husband must deal with a scolding wife with a firm
hand; like sermon writers examined in Chapter One, however, The
Canterbury Tales indicates that too firm a hand might produce poor
results. The Wife of Bath’s response to her fifth husband’s violence
is intriguing: she not only seems to expect cruelty from her husband
(perhaps as any disobedient wife should have), but she seems to
delight in it.
As Alison sees it, “sovereignty” (818) is at the heart of the prob-
lem with marriage. Husband and wife cannot both be master, but
“one of us two must bend, doubtless.” (440) In her first three mar-
riages, Alison was very much in control. Through her youthful energy
and sexual voracity, she kept her elderly husbands in line. If a hus-
band rebelled against her mastery, she “chided him spitefully” (223),
and reminded him of a man’s proper place in the marriage. The
character of Alison, even more so than Uxor Noe, represents a figure
of growing concern in late medieval society: the scold. Through her
incessant nagging, gossiping, brawling and verbal abuse, the scold
repeatedly harassed and troubled her neighbours. By the late four-
teenth century, most municipalities in England had passed laws pro-
hibiting such vexatious and disturbing behaviour. Boroughs submitted
convicted scolds to either the cucking stool or the scold’s bridle, an
iron mask intended to still the tongue.6 The connection between a
disobedient woman and a horse needing to be tamed is very explicit
in this imagery: like the wild horse, the scold lacks a master.
Chaucer consciously makes allusions to Alison as a scold. It is
through this very conduct that she gained “mastery” (818) in her
first three marriages, because as Alison claimed, “as a horse I could
bite and whine.” (386) Even in her fifth marriage, in which the strug-
gle for power was most taxing, in the end her husband was brought
to his senses and “gave me all the bridle in my hand.” (813) Chaucer
draws a link between scolding as a social phenomenon and female

6
Although late medieval England employed the scold’s bridle, it became much
more common in the early modern era. See Jody Enders, “Violence, Silence, and
the Memory of Witches,” in Violence against Women in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), 218–23.
232 chapter six

rebellion against the social construction of male dominance within

marriage. Neither the surviving legal records nor the vast majority
of popular literature from the period ever explicitly state this association.
Chaucer’s analysis of this situation reminds us that some women,
who indeed openly rebelled against the gender hierarchy, did not
accept whole-heartedly the vision of a rigid marital hierarchy.
With her spirited and intelligent voice, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath
stands out from the rest. In the Wife of Bath, Chaucer created a
woman of surprising intellectual aptitude: she is capable of teasing
out the complexities of theological discourse on the subject of marriage,
while at the same time demonstrates a profound knowledge of ancient
mythology. Such a woman forces audiences to take a second look
at the scold; she is not only untamed and overly vocal, but also dan-
gerous. Chaucer’s Wife of Bath reminds us of the difficulties of inter-
preting the scolding wife in an entirely negative light. While the Wife
was disobedient and loud, much of what she had to say made sense.
Similarly, medieval audiences may not have been entirely comfort-
able with the parody of the scolding wife, simply because many of
them knew that, while scolding wives were to be discouraged, often
wives can be helpful to their husbands and, as Chobham has sug-
gested, can even teach their husbands. The Wife of Bath is a wor-
risome symbol, then, simply because her character, like the scolding
woman, may have seemed very real to medieval audiences. While
her disobedient and boisterous performance exposed a certain moral
deficiency, audiences feel compelled to hear her story.
And what a story the wife has to tell about power relations in
marriage. The Wife of Bath makes it clear to her audience that to
her, “mastery” does not imply female independence. With her fourth
husband, Alison was free from all constraints. Without a word in
protest from him, she passed her time walking “from house to house,
to hear sundry tales” (547) with her “gossip” and friends, and still
she was not happy. Her husband’s philandering filled her “heart
[with] great despite.” (481) Although nowhere does she confess to
having loved him, her inability to control his actions angered and
distressed her. Alison was looking for ultimate control: she wanted
not only freedom for herself, but absolute authority over her hus-
band’s actions. In essence, she was seeking the mundus inversus. When
it became obvious to her that she would never obtain this degree
of power in the relationship, she looked towards greener pastures
and prepared to move on to husband number five.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 233

In her final marriage to Jankyn the “jolly clerk,” (628) her new
husband’s personality transformed altogether. “He had a book that
gladly, night and day, / For his sport he would read always.” (669–70)
Obsessively, he read aloud from his “book of wicked wives,” (685)
detailing the sins past women had committed against their husbands,
in the hopes of putting his wife in her proper place. His constant
torment eventually led to his submission. Seeing that his tirade might
go on indefinitely, the Wife plucked the book from his hands, tore
three leaves from it and cast the first blow. Jankyn’s response was
overzealous: “with his fist he smote me on the head.” (795) He
knocked the Wife to the ground unconscious. “Aghast,” (798) think-
ing he had killed her, Jankyn prepared to flee, just as Alison began
to emerge from her swoon. This brush with death had a profound
effect on Jankyn, immediately snapping him out of his morose funk
and causing him to make the proclamation, “As help me God! I
shall thee never smite.” (805) Hoping to reconcile with his wife after
this ordeal, Jankyn bent down to kiss Alison, and in return she “hit
him on the cheek.” (808) “But at last, with much care and woe,”
(811) they devised a solution to their problems. Jankyn ceded to his
wife the “governance of house and land, / And of his tongue, and
of his hand also,” (814–5) and they lived happily ever after.
The Wife of Bath’s prologue, then, is in an enigmatic and ener-
getic introduction to the subject of marriage. Chaucer leaves the
audience to unravel the various meanings of the prologue. The Wife
of Bath demonstrates the dangers of giving a wife too free a rein.
Not only was she uncontrolled and outspoken, her manifold attempts
to exert “mastery” in marriage provide proof that power struggles
within marriage drive out love. In this respect, it is essential to
remember that the Wife of Bath is only the first of a group of tales
focussed on the subject of marriage, and thus audiences should not
interpret it as Chaucer’s final word on the subject. While the Wife
of Bath’s prologue confirms that female dominance in marriage is
both offensive and destructive, the Merchant’s Tale demonstrates
that complete control by the husband is equally ruinous. The moral
of this group, then, is surely to demonstrate that complete control
by either spouse is an exercise in futility, and inevitably leads to an
unhappy, and perhaps even fatal, end.
How is the audience intended to interpret the abuse in the Wife
of Bath’s prologue? The Wife herself has a mixed reaction to it. She
describes her relationship with her fifth husband as a very unusual one.
234 chapter six

And yet was he to me the most shrew;

That feel I on my ribs all by row,
And ever shall unto my ending day.
But in our bed he was so fresh and gay,
And therewithal so well could he flatter me,
When that he would want my bele chose,
That though he had me beat on every bone,
He could win again my love anon.
I think I loved him best, for that he
Was of his love dangerous to me. (505–14)
By her own admission, the Wife’s fifth husband beat her badly (“on
every bone”) and frequently. In their final argument, the single blow
she received was of such force that it not only knocked her uncon-
scious, but of “the stroke my ear wax all deaf.” (636) And yet, she
“loved him best” because “he was of his love dangerous to me.” The
word “dangerous” in this context has been interpreted in a number
of ways. T.L. Burton has argued that, here, readers should understand
“dangerous” to mean “reluctant to make love.” The Wife of Bath
loved this husband best because she liked to be dominated sexually.7
Elaine Tuttle Hansen takes this further, arguing instead that “dan-
gerous” had much the same meaning as its modern variant. His bru-
tality was the reason she loved him best.8 The abuse in this account,
then, has a very specific and equally dangerous message. Not only
are women attracted to violent men, but also they enjoy being beaten.
This message renders the sermons of Chobham, Januensis and
Peregrinus obsolete. There is no need to caution husbands against
beating their wives, because a loving wife will both expect and wel-
come such treatment.
Chaucer makes the audience very much aware of the reasons why
men are driven to violence. The Wife of Bath is very much attached
to her gossips, and it is this behaviour in particular that provokes

7
T.L. Burton, “The Wife of Bath’s Fourth and Fifth Husbands and her Ideal
Sixth: The Growth of a Marital Philosophy,” The Chaucer Review 13 (1979): 42.
8
Elaine Tuttle Hansen, “‘Of his love daungerous to me’: Liberation, Subversion
and Domestic Violence in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” in Geoffrey Chaucer:
The Wife of Bath, ed. Peter Beidler (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press,
1996), 278–80. Palomo adopts a similar argument. See Dolores Palomo, “The Fate
of the Wife of Bath’s ‘Bad Husbands’,” The Chaucer Review 9 (1975): 315. Both
Hansen and Palomo find some support for this contention in the Middle English
Dictionary. It suggests that in this particular phrase “dangerous” should be inter-
preted to mean “niggardly” or “chary” (thus, her fifth husband was stingy or spar-
ing with his love). See the Middle English Dictionary, 3, 847–8.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 235

ire from her husbands. Even Alison’s fourth husband, who was
unemotional and distant, was driven easily to shame when he found
Alison sharing details of his private life with her gossips. All five of
her husbands had good reason to fear the Wife of Bath’s friendship
and loyalty to her gossips. First, Alison herself believed that visiting
her friends was evidence of her independence and sovereignty in
marriage. Irrespective of her husbands’ protests she exerted and won
this right again and again, establishing to herself (if not others) that
she was the master of her marriages. Moreover, as Jankyn should
well remember it, it was on one of these walks about town that she
first showed her affection for him and expressed the opinion that if
she were a widow, he should wed her. (568) Knowing the dangers
this freedom afforded her, more than anyone, he should have feared
extending her that same liberty. Second, the Wife prized her female
friendships above all else. In fact, her relationship with one favourite
gossip, a woman also named Alison, was much more enduring and
personally meaningful than any of her marriages. Her primary alle-
giance to women doubtless empowered Alison, giving her the courage
to stand up to her husbands and demand freedom of movement,
but also undermined the potential for intimacy in marriage. When
looking for her next husband, Alison did not feel compelled to find
a soul mate, because she already had good friends with whom she
might share the secrets of her life. In light of the growing concerns
about scolding in late medieval society, Chaucer may have intended
Alison’s female confederacy as a warning to men in society: the only
way to prevent women from encouraging each other in their inde-
pendence is to keep a good wife at home.
We will never really know Chaucer’s purpose in writing the Wife
of Bath’s prologue. It is not clear whether he was a proto-feminist
using the Wife of Bath to voice concerns about male patriarchal
authority, or he intended the Wife primarily to disparage domi-
neering women. The underlying themes of this narrative, however,
support the possibility that struggles with power relations were symp-
tomatic of many late medieval marriages. Chaucer also relates scold-
ing with marriage: the Wife of Bath was a scold because her husbands
failed to govern her properly. While this does not explain the real-
ity of all scolds in the late Middle Ages, it indicates that a failure
to internalise and impose social rules of governance may have been
thought to produce scolding wives. As far as Chobham, Bracton and
other clerical writers might stray from essentialist notions of woman
236 chapter six

as a type of Eve, in the end, they were always compelled to come

full circle, because as Alison expressed it best, everyone knew that
“women desire to have sovereignty.” (1038) Yet, the Wife of Bath
makes it clear that women need to strike a balance between Alison’s
first four husbands and her last. Her early husbands offered too free
a rein; Jankyn offered no freedom at all. Autocratic, abusive and
ridiculous, Jankyn merely encouraged her rebellious ways. Chaucer’s
Wife of Bath confirms the need for husbands to govern judiciously
and even-handedly; otherwise, a lifetime of misery married to a scold-
ing, disobedient wife is the best for which one might hope.

The Wife of Bath in Context:

Scold Prosecutions in Late Medieval Essex and York

The Wife of Bath is a caricature of the scold: it is hard to imagine

that any medieval woman actually asserted that kind of power over
men in society through verbal aggression. Mounting fears about
women like Alison, however, imply that some medieval women repli-
cated this behaviour. Misuse of the tongue landed many women
before the courts. Gossiping, nagging, berating of husbands and gen-
erally disturbing the peace through excessive verbosity were all com-
parable offences that fell under the general category of scolding.9 As
a minimum, a woman had to engage in multiple instances of quar-
relsome behaviour before she found herself presented before the
court. It was in the repetition of the offence, the perpetual disrup-
tion of her neighbour’s peace, that a woman’s conduct became intol-
erable. The prosecution of scolds was a serious undertaking. Although
Essex and York adopted different approaches in this matter, both
counties expressed anxiety over exposing acts of female verbal aggres-
sion and making an example of these women.
The courts did not treat scolding as a matter to be taken lightly,
as a case from the manorial records of Thorner in Yorkshire from
1365 confirms:

9
For a discussion of verbal misconduct in context of changing legislation in the
fourteenth century, see Sandy Bardsley, “Sin, Speech, and Scolding in Late Medieval
England,” in Fama: The Politics of Talk and Reputation in Medieval Europe, ed. Thelma
Fenser and Daniel Lord Smail (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 145–64.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 237

Elena de . . ., Matilda Countays, Agnes wife of Adam son of John,

Alice wife of John Best, Elena wife of Hugh de Schirwod, and Elizabeth
Hastenges are common gossips (garulatores) and disturbers of the peace,
so that the penalty of ijs. which was ordained by the Court is (incurred).
. . . [and] that wheresoever and as often as any of those gossips, or
other common gossips, be found guilty of gossiping by those officers,
that forthwith they be placed on the thew, under penalty of forty
pence, to be levied upon those officers to the lord’s use.10
Not only were women subject to steep financial penalties and threats
of even greater future exactions in the event of continued misbe-
haviour; at times, the courts submitted them to public humiliation
and physical torment using the “thew” or cucking stool. Martin
Ingram has claimed that the manor or borough courts rarely used
the cucking stool. He observes that most towns never invested in the
building of a proper stool, and that even in those that did, the instru-
ment was frequently in disrepair and unusable. Further, he maintains
that records of final sentencing are misleading: women ordered to
be cucked were often able to commute their penalty into a mone-
tary fine and to avoid the stool altogether.11 This may be even more
relevant for the medieval period when cucking stools were a much
rarer find than in the early modern era.12 Nevertheless, there is evi-
dence that medieval towns and villages were using the cucking stool
as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century.13 A cucking stool,
functional or not, was a powerful symbol of public values in which
local elites identified female assertiveness as a direct threat to the
welfare of the vill. Whether they used this instrument frequently or
not at all, its very presence must have acted as a powerful deter-
rent to women who might have otherwise voiced their opinions when
presented with an exasperating situation. With cucking stools on

10
W.T. Lancaster, ed., “Fourteenth Century Court Rolls of the Manor of Thorner,”
Miscellanea (Thoresby Society, v. 15, 1909), 170.
11
Martin Ingram, “ ‘Scolding women cucked or washed’: a crisis in gender rela-
tions in early modern England?” in Women, crime and the courts in Early Modern England,
ed. J. Kermode and G. Walker (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1994), 48–80.
12
Unfortunately, much of the research into this phenomenon has been in the
early modern context. The medieval evidence, however, strongly suggests that scolds
became a problem in the late Middle Ages and that instruments, like the cucking
stool, existed for their punishment. See Enders, 210–32.
13
John Webster Spargo, Juridical Folklore in England Illustrated by the Cucking-Stool
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1944), 15–6.
238 chapter six

prominent display, the typical Englishwoman of the fifteenth and six-

teenth centuries learned to keep her peace in the community through
fear rather than respect or civility.
Both Yorkshire and Essex during the later Middle Ages show signs
of this budding intolerance of feminine aggression. Nevertheless, the
two counties espoused different approaches to dealing with scolds.
In Essex, over the course of the fourteenth century, municipal courts
took it upon themselves to regulate the social misbehaviours of women
by holding them (and sometimes their husbands) legally responsible
for their actions. The village and borough courts of York were much
less dedicated to this cause. Although Yorkshire manors sometimes
presented scolds, the numbers simply do not compare to Essex. In
the absence of municipal byelaws, the church in York filled this void.
Yorkshire scolds regularly found themselves presented before the
church courts, required to reform their behaviour. Despite their
different methodologies, both counties expressed a marked resolve to
punish instances of repeated verbal aggression by women.
The late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manorial rolls of Earls
Colne (Essex) confirm the severity of the offence. The court scribe
described Margery Holdehall in 1429 as both a “common scandal-
monger,” and an “abuser of her neighbours,” while Isabel, wife of
John March, a year later was described as “a common scold and
gossips and disturbs all her neighbours unjustly against the peace.”14
Both entries succinctly capture the various elements of social non-
conformity. While the court fined Margery and Isabel four and three
pence respectively, penalties were sometimes even steeper. In the
year 1514, the wife of Breggs the butcher paid a fine of three shillings,
four pence for being a common chider of her neighbours. Edith
Thale, who was also brought up on charges of hedge breaking and
threatened with a fine of forty pence if she repeated the offence,
was warned in 1468 to leave the village altogether because of her
gossiping.15 In both cases, the courts demanded penalties much greater
than those habitually imposed on persons guilty of assault (an offence
usually resolved with a fine of around three pence). Seemingly, in
the minds of the village elite in Earls Colne, a bloodied and bruised
body meant little when compared with transgressions of the social
hierarchy. The high fines imposed for other infractions of social

14
ERO D/DPr68.
15
ERO D/DPr66.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 239

norms underscore the critical nature of moral offences in late medieval

Earls Colne. In 1433, Ralph Atte Pery was fined two shillings for
being “a common night walker under the houses and walls of divers
men harkening after their privy talk in the night.” In 1422, John
Chaloner paid three shillings, four pence for keeping a whore in his
house, and in 1503, the court exiled Katherine Pecocke from the
village for being a “common bawd,” and warned her that if she did
not comply with this command she would face a fine of forty pence.16
Given that, a sheep at that time sold for no less than ten pence and
an ox at least seven shillings,17 the court excused none of these
offenders lightly. This particular late medieval manor in Essex was
participating whole-heartedly in the trend towards local persecution
of moral transgressions.
The borough of Colchester was even more condemnatory in its
prosecution of scolds. Within a period of sixty-nine years, spanning
the years 1311 to 1379, the borough presented and punished seventy-
eight cases of scolding.18 This total is higher than that of any other
local jurisdiction within the limits of the present investigation. Under-
standably, Colchester’s quasi-urban nature might have contributed
to this substantially higher figure. Yet, even by English standards,
Colchester was never very large or its economy exclusively urban.
Throughout the late medieval period, the inhabitants of Colchester
relied heavily on pastoral agriculture in order to sustain themselves.
In fact, sixty-nine percent of the total population participated in agri-
culture in one way or another.19 At a time when neighbouring London
was overflowing with 40,000 inhabitants, estimates of Colchester’s
early fourteenth-century population place it at a mere 3,000 people.20
Even at the height of population growth in the late fourteenth century,
levels reached no higher than five or six thousand residents, although

16
The first two examples are both from ERO D/DPr68, the last appears in
ERO D/DPr 70.
17
M.M Postan, The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain
1100 –1500 (Berkley: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), 232.
18
Within these seventy-eight cases, one woman, Christian Ferthyng seems to
account for three separate instances of scolding: first in 1352, again in 1366 and
finally in 1375. The total number of offenders, then, lies somewhere between seventy-
five (assuming that all three Christians are indeed the same person) and seventy-
eight.
19
R.H. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300–1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986), 17.
20
Britnell, 16.
240 chapter six

this may be an overestimate for the fifteenth century.21 Despite

Colchester’s local and national prominence, it was no booming metro-
polis. Given its small population, then, seventy-eight prosecutions
over a period of sixty-nine years bear witness to an exceptional dedi-
cation to the prosecution of scolding women.
There are no strictly medieval figures available for comparative
purposes here; however, Karen Jones and Michael Zell’s study of
the Kent borough of Fordwich provides a statistical analysis of a
similar setting. While their study addresses a slightly later period and
a smaller urban environment, Fordwich is a logical choice for a sta-
tistical comparison because it shared a number of corresponding
characteristics with the Essex borough. Both were urban in nature
and an agricultural economy continued to be of primary importance
in each community. Their geographical proximity and joint politi-
cal activity as well imply a very real possibility of a shared belief
structure. When the peasantry of Essex actively opposed the poll tax
in 1381 and rose up in armed revolt against the English aristocracy,
their Kentish neighbours chose to support them. When peasants in
south-eastern Kent began Cade’s rebellion in the mid-fifteenth cen-
tury, the conflict drew immediate support in Essex. Both shared a
unique political perspective strongly founded on notions of social
injustice; given their similarity in outlook, the two regions might also
have experienced comparable shifts in morality and the exercise of
local justice.
Jones and Zell chose a much longer frame of reference for their
study. Over the course of one hundred and twenty years (from 1451
to 1570), the views of frankpledge for the borough of Fordwich pro-
duced thirty-seven scolds, of which the majority (twenty-one pre-
sentments) were concentrated in the decades around the beginning
of the sixteenth century.22 This figure is substantially less than that
of Colchester for the fourteenth century; however, we need to take
a number of variables into consideration when evaluating this dis-
parity. Because Jones and Zell’s study falls in the midst of a period
of more intense persecution of scolds, particularly at the turn of the
century, identified by McIntosh and other early modernists as an
especially vehement moment in the history of social control, the total

21
L.R. Poos, A rural society after the Black Death, Essex 1350 –1525 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 41.
22
Karen Jones and Michael Zell, “Bad conversation? Gender and social control
in a Kentish borough, c. 1450–c. 1570,” Continuity and Change 13 (1998): 15.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 241

number of scold presentments should have been quite high. The

intense nature of the period and the longer duration of the study,
then, should serve to offset the population difference between the
two regions. Yet, the Fordwich total pales in comparison with the
findings of scold presentments in the Colchester borough.
What is even more unusual about Colchester’s proclivity to pros-
ecute female deviance is that it was fairly consistent throughout the
fourteenth century. McIntosh argues that both manorial and church
courts experienced the first pangs of anxiety about scolding around
the year 1300; however, they discontinued the regulation of these
offences after the year 1330 and they failed to reappear in any impor-
tant way until the early 1370s.23 Nevertheless, as the figures in Table
One suggest, Colchester’s prosecution of scolds fails to fall in line
with national trends:

Table 6.1: Colchester Scold Prosecutions: the Fourteenth Century

Decade Number of Presentments for Scolding

1310–19 12
1320–29 0
1330–39 14
1340–49 2
1350–59 14
1360–69 6
1370–79 30

Total Number 78

While the data for Colchester in the 1310s conform to McIntosh’s

expectations, the figures for the entire century show that scolding
was a fluctuating concern in Colchester, and that the 1330s was a
period in which scolding was as contentious as it was in the 1310s.
During the period between 1330 and 1370 when scolding prosecu-
tion should have been almost non-existent, according to McIntosh’s
findings, Colchester reported thirty-six presentments, almost half the
total number for the entire period under investigation. The findings
of Colchester’s borough records reflect McIntosh’s observation that

23
Marjorie Keniston McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior in England, 1370 –1600
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chapter one.
242 chapter six

the 1370s was a key decade in the inception of harsh regulation of

social misbehaviour of this nature. Colchester rejoined the national
pattern of changes in local justice, with thirty presentments over the
course of the decade. Despite Colchester’s renewed vigour, the data
for the period prior to this, however, remain constant, allowing for
a slight interruption in the progression with the onslaught of famine
and plague in the 1340s.
The unusual population trends of Essex during this period may
explain Colchester’s efforts in social control at such an early stage.
Contrary to national patterns, “extensive geographical mobility had
already become an integral experience of country life in Essex well
before the Black Death.” In fact, by the 1320s “rural Essex com-
munities experienced rates of resident population turnover roughly
equal in magnitude to those of English communities three hundred
years later.”24 Such intense migration in the rural environment had
significant ramifications on the urban setting. Inhabitants soon acquired
a heightened awareness of the economic benefits of population
exchange; “migration was the means by which people found places
in the local economy to fit into.”25 This early transformation in the
composition of the population of Essex created a perceived need for
social control not felt elsewhere in England.26 The difficulties of gov-
erning such a highly changeable population likely posed many prob-
lems to fourteenth century administrators and challenged traditional
systems of communal policing. In this respect, Essex had little choice
but to become more ‘progressive’ or sophisticated in its precocious
forays into moral regulation.
The borough court of Colchester fined individuals for a wide vari-
ety of acts that fall into the category of scolding: common scolds,
litigious persons, babblers, chatterers, garrulous persons, brawlers,
and disturbers of the peace. The range of names employed for the
offence is an indication of the wide variety of transgressions involved
in this kind of misbehaviour. Women who continuously sued their
neighbours in court were placed in the same category as those who
24
Poos, 160.
25
Poos, p. 159.
26
Elsewhere in England, peasants had regular contacts with inhabitants in other
vills and were not as geographically immobile as has sometimes been suggested.
However, Essex does seem to have been exceptional in this respect. For the mobility
of the medieval peasantry, see Anne Reiber DeWindt, “Redefining the Peasant
Community in Medieval England: The Regional Perspective,” Journal of British Studies
26 (1987): 163–207.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 243

gossiped or who initiated loud, disruptive arguments. Each of these

offences was dealt with in a harsh and demoralising manner, although
no scold was forced to undergo time in the cucking stool. Only one
case from the records of this period even hints at the existence of
a stool in Colchester. In 1334 Alice la Selkwimman and her daugh-
ter Mabel were convicted on their own confessions of being com-
mon litigious persons and ordered to be cucked for their offence.
The punishment was never carried out. The court commuted the
penalty to a fine of two shillings on the “supplication of friends.”27
The court’s lenience suggests that while their behaviour merited social
mortification, friends and neighbours, and perhaps even the repre-
sentatives of the court, considered the cucking stool excessive for this
purpose. None the less, this case demonstrates that the borough of
Colchester was in possession of a functional cucking stool at a very
early stage, and yet, paradoxically, chose not to use it. This con-
tradiction inevitably brings us back to the social utility of a cucking
stool within a borough or manor. Colchester’s example argues that,
during the fourteenth century at least, the borough courts may have
intended the instrument chiefly as a physical deterrent to female
aggression. It was a tangible warning of the potential disaster of vio-
lating the social hierarchy rather than a tool employed by the courts
in the regular system of moral control.
In Yorkshire, the manorial records express an interest in scolding,
but of a much lesser degree. Wakefield boasts only four cases of
women presented as “common scolds”; the fourteenth-century manor
of Thorner notes only seven.28 The remaining manorial rolls, while
admittedly in poor condition and few in number, also do not show
signs of any great preoccupation with scold prosecution. Pontefract
presents two persons for scolding;29 Bradford notes six;30 Tickhill
Honor and Nazeing present one each.31 Nevertheless, while the
Yorkshire manors lack the dedication of the Essex local courts, the
nature of cases presented at Yorkshire courts reveals a burgeoning

27
Isaac Herbert Jeayes, ed., Court Rolls of the Borough of Colchester (3 vols., Colchester:
W. Gunrey, 1921–41), 1.123.
28
K.M. Troup, ed. and trans., The Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield from October
1338 to September 1340 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society, v. 12, 1999), 78, 222;
W.P. Baildon, ed. and trans., Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield, 1297–1309 (Yorkshire
Archaeological Society, v. 36, 1906), 191; Lancaster, 162, 164, 170, 171.
29
TNA DL 30/129/162, mm. 2 and 4.
30
TNA DL 30/129/1957, mm. 27d, 40, 55.
31
TNA DL 30/131/2006, m. 4; TNA SC 2/173/33, m. 1d.
244 chapter six

awareness of the utility of the law to compel individuals into behav-

ioural reform. For example, the manor court at Thorner summoned
Matilda Countays, Agnes, wife of John Best, and Ellen, wife of Hugh
de Schirwod, to appear before the court for the first time in 1364,
then again in 1365.32 Unfortunately, the records note only the fines
for the second conviction; thus, it is impossible to discover whether
penalties increased with each subsequent appearance. At two shillings,
however, the second fine implies that repetition of the offence incurred
greater fines. When the court amerced the wife of John Yung of
Thorner for gossiping with the wife of Adam Souter, it assigned her
a fine of six pence, but only three pence to the wife of Adam Souter.33
That two women accused of the same misbehaviour should have
been penalised by fines of differing amounts invites one of two con-
clusions. Either one was held to be more responsible for the offence
than was the other, or there was a scale of exactions in which each
repetition of the ill conduct moved the offender up a notch. If the
latter were indeed the case, one can only assume that Matilda, Agnes
and Ellen were no strangers to the inner workings of the local court.
The Pontefract court disciplined not only the act of gossiping, but
also their method of gathering information. In the year 1427, Joan,
wife of John Persson, appeared in court on charges of eavesdrop-
ping at her neighbour’s windows by night; in April of the next year,
Elisabeth, wife of William Falby, appeared on the same charge.34
Bradford, on the other hand, punished both women and men for
scolding. In the month of October 1351, the manor court fined
Richard Jankyn, Hugh Dysip and Hugh son of Thomas all three
pence for disturbing the peace with their clamorousness, while in
October of 1357 the court fined Robert Dikson for a similar offence.35
The existence of so few cases from the northern courts is significant.
At a time when all of England was reorienting and restructuring
itself to deal with lapses in social conformity, York appears as an
anomaly. And yet, northern scolds did not evade punishment altogether.
The court book of the Dean and Chapter of York covering the
period 1387 to 1494 manifests a remarkable concern for female
verbal aggression; in fact, with respect to a relatively small group of

32
Lancaster, 162, and 170–1.
33
Lancaster, 164.
34
TNA DL 30/129/1962, mm. 2, 4.
35
TNA DL 30/129/1957, mm. 27d, 40.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 245

parishes over which the Dean and Chapter had direct jurisdiction,
this ecclesiastical court very much adopted the role of the manorial
court. Over the course of this 108-year period, 31 cases in which
the offender was accused of both scolding and defaming appeared
before the court, while an additional 23 accused of scolding only
and 20 accused of defaming only were also brought forward, there
were 74 cases of verbal transgressions.36 As was the case in Colchester,
the offenders were overwhelmingly female. Only six of the 74 offenders
were male. One man, Richard Carterbarn of Dodworth (Yorks.),
appeared twice for scolding and defaming together; however, on the
first occasion he appeared with his wife who stood accused of the same
crime, suggesting that the court might have seen her as the primary
instigator. John Bygan, accused of both scolding and defaming, also
appeared with his wife. The manor charged the other three male
offenders with defaming only. That the court charged no man with
scolding alone confirms that, even more than the secular courts, the
church courts perceived this to be a particularly feminine offence.
The records permit a number of conclusions concerning contem-
porary attitudes about domineering women. First, scolds were subject
to prosecution in a wide variety of legal venues. While the manorial
courts of Yorkshire do not offer many examples of this type, the
number of scolds appearing in manorial records is sufficiently high
to confirm that localities considered scolding as an offence to be within
their purview. That these cases also appear in the records of the
Dean and Chapter, then, indicates that the church in York was par-
ticipating jointly in the objective to bind the tongues of unruly women.
Second, the York figures for scold prosecution in the church courts
demonstrate a marked difference between northern and southern
approaches to controlling disobedient women. The act books for the
diocese of Canterbury also document a growing preoccupation with
garrulous women. While only 16 cases of defamation came before
the Canterbury consistory court in the years 1372–5, the act book
covering the years 1416–23 boasts 144 defendants in cases of defama-
tion litigation.37 Finally, instance acta for the years 1474–9 exhibit

36
York D & C AB/1. I chose to examine this particular book simply because
it spans such a long period, and one in which I expected scold prosecution should
have been popular.
37
Canterbury Y.1.1 (1372–5); Y.1.3 (1416–23).
246 chapter six

the highest numbers of defamation cases at 329 persons accused of

defamation over a six-year period.38 These figures support the argu-
ment that the Canterbury court, like its northern counterpart, was
concerned with punishing verbal offences. However, a number of
major differences distinguish the records of the north and the south.
Most interesting, none of the Canterbury records indicates that the
court singled women out as being specifically blameworthy. For exam-
ple, in the years 1372–5, the defendants in defamation litigation were
split down the middle according to gender, eight male, eight female.
Of the 144 defendants accused of slander in the years 1416–23,
eighty-nine were male, fifty-five female. Even the totals for the period
1474–9 point to a male predominance, with 183 male defendants,
146 female. Thus, while the court of Canterbury was rapidly becom-
ing more intolerant of verbal offences, it did not perceive them to
be a specifically female offence.
In addition, the northern ecclesiastical court punished both scolding
and defamation; its southern counterpart lacked scold prosecutions
altogether. This glaring contrast confirms what the records of the
borough court of Colchester intimate: in the south, scolding women
so appalled local communities that they took it upon themselves to
correct the problem. In the north, where scolding did not generate
the same kind of anxiety, local courts considered the Dean and Chapter
capable of bridling the tongues of women, and thus only the most
rebellious of women found themselves faced with court proceedings.
That regional variation in northern and southern attitudes towards
“unbridled” or domineering women should exist is hardly surpris-
ing. As Helen Jewell has argued, “[t]he north-south divide in England
is truly as old as the hills.”39 Throughout the medieval era north-
erners and southerners were preoccupied by entirely different con-
cerns: the north with warring Scotland, the south with France.
Relations between north and south were strained at best. The sur-
viving records reinforce that the “the North was the poor relation
throughout the middle ages,” and that “southerners desire north-
erners to be subordinate and are annoyed when they do not behave
so.”40 Moreover, the common law in the north was applied in a

38
Canterbury Y.1.12 (1474–9).
39
Helen M. Jewell, “North and South: The Antiquity of the Great Divide,”
Northern History 28 (1991): 23.
40
Jewell, 18–9.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 247

unique fashion to cope with the difficulties of life in a region plagued

by continuous war. For example, after the 1352 statute of treason
northerners were able to penalize more effectively Englishmen who
abetted Scots in crime through the statute’s broad definition of treason
to include those who collude with the king’s enemies. Consequently,
northerners were far more likely to impute treason than were south-
ern Englishmen.41 When it comes to the role of women in general,
recent studies have proposed that the situation of women varied
tremendously between northern and southern England. P.J.P. Gold-
berg’s examination of late medieval York presents a positive assess-
ment of the position of women in society. The post-plague era brought
about great changes for northern women in the economy. Women
were far more likely to acquire land through inheritance and right
of dower; at the same time, women participated in the general rise
in real wages and benefited from the rise in wages for unskilled
labourers.42 Goldberg argues that women were “from an economic
perspective newly enfranchised,” temporarily playing a greater posi-
tion in society in general.43 This rosy perspective is simply not per-
tinent in the south. In her study of late medieval Sussex, Mavis Mate
explains that after 1350, Sussex women continued to dominate a
narrow range of low-paid, low-status positions. Moreover, certain
profitable areas of traditional women’s work, like brewing, under-
went a process of professionalisation at this time and thus passed
out of the hands of women, making it even more difficult for women
to achieve economic independence.44 Her assessment of women’s sta-
tus in late medieval society is bleak enough to have earned some

41
C.J. Neville, “The Law of Treason in the English Border Counties in the Later
Middle Ages,” Law and History Review 9 (1991): 1–30.
42
P.J.P. Goldberg, “Women in Fifteenth-century Town Life,” in Towns and
Townspeople in the Fifteenth Century, ed. J.A.F. Thomson (Gloucester: Alan Sutton,
1988), 121–2. See also, his “Women’s Work, Women’s Role in the Late Medieval
North,” in Profit, Piety and the Professions in Later Medieval England, ed. M.A. Hicks
(Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1990), 34–50; “Female Labour, Service and Marriage in
Northern Towns During the Later Middle Ages,” Northern History 22 (1986): 18–38;
“Mortality and Economic Change in the Diocese of York, 1390–1514,” Northern
History 24 (1988): 38–55; Women, Work and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women
in York and Yorkshire, c. 1300–1520 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
43
Goldberg, Women, Work, and Life-Cycle, 7.
44
Mavis E. Mate, Daughters, Wives and Widows after the Black Death: Women in Sussex,
1350–1535 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998). For a good summary of the differences
between north and south for women in the post-plague era, see S.H. Rigby,
“Gendering the Black Death: Women in Later Medieval England,” Gender and History
12 (2000): 745–54.
248 chapter six

criticism;45 however, it seems clear that, although the Black Death

may have radically altered the position of women in the north, this
calamity did not have the same impact on the south. Bearing all of
this in mind, it is both reasonable and even predictable that the two
regions should have dissented on the handling of scold prosecution.
In general, northern women led lives that were “arguably more stress-
ful and precarious than those of most medieval Englishwomen,” and
thus a certain degree of female aggression may have been more read-
ily acceptable in this environment.46 At the same time, the economic
prosperity of women in the fourteenth century may have provided
them with the ability to remain single, eliminating the possibility of
marital strife. While both counties demonstrated a marked desire to
rid themselves of the scolding tongues of women, it is thus not sur-
prising that their dedication and methods of handling the situation
differ considerably between the two counties.

Changing Values: The Importance of the Fourteenth Century

The fourteenth century presented a variety of new challenges for

married couples that may have led to increased levels of marital ten-
sion. This was a key period in the regulation of social misbehav-
iours of all kinds (not only marital violence, but also disruption of
the peace, eavesdropping, gambling, nightwalking, gossiping, and
scolding). Respectable local people were experiencing a sense of anx-
iety about public order that led to the creation of municipal byelaws
against disruptive and non-conformist activities, bringing social mis-
behaviour into the village courtroom. Thus, the responsibility for
overseeing local harmony shifted from the unofficial hands of fam-
ily and friends in the early part of the period to the legal commu-
nity after the mid-fourteenth century. Marjorie McIntosh notes that
this “was by no means a simple ‘top down’ phenomenon. If a type

45
See J. Whittle, review of Daughters, Wives and Widows after the Black Death: Women
in Sussex, 1350–1535, by Mavis E. Mate, Economic History Review 52 (1999): 146.
46
C.J. Neville, “War, Women and Crime in the Northern English Border Lands
in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” in The Final Argument: The Imprint of
Violence on Society in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Donald J. Kagay, L.J.
Villalon (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998), 165.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 249

of behaviour was causing trouble in their community, local jurors

reported it, whether or not they had been authorized to do so. They
were not dutifully carrying out the instructions issued by their supe-
riors, for rarely had such orders been given. For some offences . . .
the lesser courts began to tackle problems well before intermediate-
level institutions took notice of them.”47 Juries presented and punished
transgressions of social values and conventions that were not cate-
gorised as legal infractions under the common law or according to
local custom. Bawdry, nightwalking, gaming, living suspiciously, and
other offences against the locality became a substantial part of the
standard repertoire of finable transgressions. Even violations that
should have appeared properly before the church courts, such as
adultery and other sexual sins, somehow made their way into the
local courts for regulation. Local officials were vigilant in their inves-
tigation of immorality, refusing to leave the governance of a family
in the hands of ineffectual patriarchs. A study of fifteenth-century
London notes there was “an apparent acceptance, on all sides, of
public intrusion into domestic space . . . [such that, a certain] John
Calton, by virtue of his office [as local constable], entered a neigh-
bor’s house without his permission, late in the evening, because he
had reasonable cause to suspect there were fornicators on the premises.
Other constables and beadles also burst into people’s houses—even
at four o’clock in the morning —to catch offenders in the act.”48
That the courts confidently proceeded to judgement in these mat-
ters, rather than referring them to the ecclesiastical tribunals, marks
a transformation in perceptions of local jurisdiction and local enforce-
ment that was well under way.
This evolution has much to do with the composition of present-
ment juries. English society perceived presentment as the critical
stage in the legal process.49 Presenting jurors identified people in the
community who had exceeded the limitations of informal, local con-
trols and required legal intervention. Trial jurors, theoretically, had

47
McIntosh, 39.
48
McSheffrey, “Men and Masculinity in Late Medieval London Civic Culture:
Governance, Patriarchy and Reputation,” in Conflicted Identities and Multiple Masculinities:
Men in the Medieval West, ed. Jacqueline Murray (New York: Garland, 1999), 254.
49
See B.W. McLane, “Juror Attitudes towards Local Disorder: The Evidence of
the 1328 Lincolnshire Trailbaston Proceedings,” in Twelve Good Men and True: The
Criminal Trial Jury in England, 1200–1800, ed. J.S. Cockburn and Thomas A. Green
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 41.
250 chapter six

nothing more to do than pass sentence. Presentment in the court

for infractions of this nature was tantamount to conviction. The
courts rarely gave defendants the opportunity to refute the charges;
instead, they fined them for their behaviour and warned them against
repeating it. Marjorie McIntosh interprets the domination of pre-
sentment juries well into the early seventeenth century as an overt
attempt by the local elite to create new law within a restrictive mano-
rial system based on custom and tradition.
None of these developments occurred independent of more tan-
gible transformations in legal procedure that point to increased anx-
iety over social disorder. The growing popularity of bye-laws is also
symptomatic of an official appropriation by the locality of the kind
of legislative power exerted in the royal courts or in boroughs,50
which in effect permitted municipalities to create their “own local
statutes.”51 The decisive move away from custom-based law pro-
moted the creation of new categories of transgressions, and encour-
aged local resolution of local problems. At the same time, important
changes in forms of punishment were taking place. Manorial and
borough courts began to abandon traditional amercements and instead
adopted more rigorous and effective means of discipline, such as the
stocks, pillory or the cucking stool. The intention of these forms of
punishment was to shame or ridicule the defendant in the hope that
the memory of public redress might deter regression and in fact
reform the offender. The cucking stool in particular, with its origins
as a dung cart and its continued association with excrement through
the retention of the privy-stool design, must have been a humiliat-
ing punishment.52
A transition in terminology at this time supports the notion that
morality was a growing concern in the fourteenth century. The term
‘good governance’ developed as a means of describing appropriate
supervision of the morality of the household. The appearance of this
phrase symbolised a powerful shift within late medieval society in
which patriarchs, rather than individuals themselves, became directly

50
Owing to their character and proximity, borough courts acted collectively as
a model for the manorial courts in the adoption of this legislative capacity. Here,
it is worth noting that boroughs received this power through the granting of royal
charters, while the development of by-laws to create new law in a rural environ-
ment was an innovation sanctioned by local authorities alone.
51
McIntosh, 39.
52
Boose, 179–212. See also Spargo, 16–18, 30–31.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 251

responsible for ensuring that the behaviour of their households con-

formed to popular standards. Local elites considered any failure to
internalise this belief structure intolerable and liable to reprimand.53
In part, social control became as meaningful an issue as it did
after the fourteenth century because of the Black Death. The arrival
of the plague in England was responsible for large changes in social
structure and constitution, which in turn affected attitudes towards
local governance. The plague not only disrupted the continuity of
established family residences with its soaring death rates; the high
levels of post-plague immigration meant that local people were com-
pelled to respond to an influx of outsiders who were doubtless unaware
of regional customs or ethics. The creation of a mixed population
impelled manorial courts to abandon traditional methods of enforc-
ing good behaviour, such as compurgation and interpersonal bonds;
they relied instead on monetary fines.54
Robert Palmer’s dramatic study of the effects of the Black Death
on the English common law demonstrates the profound impact the
Black Death had on English values and hierarchy.55 Palmer argues
that legislators designed post-plague statute law, such as the Statute
of Labourers, to compel the ranks of English society “to stand to
their obligations.” The increased mobility of the post-plague era
encouraged a society without honour, in which the peasantry aban-
doned their feudal obligations in favour of individual gain. The high
rate of mortality created a labour market in which competition simply
did not exist; when serfs did not wish to work for paltry wages,
feudal lords were powerless to make them do so. The Statute

53
Barbara A. Hanawalt, “‘Good Governance’ in the Medieval and Early Modern
Context,” Journal of British Studies 37 (1998): 246–57.
54
Hanawalt, 256–67. See also J. Ambrose Raftis, Warboys: Two Hundred Years in
the Life of an English Mediaeval Village (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1974); Edward Britton, The Community of the Vill: A Study in the History of the
Family and Village Life in Fourteenth-Century England (Toronto: Macmillan, 1977); Edwin
Brezette DeWindt, Land and People in Holywell-cum-Needingworth: Structures of Tenure and
Patterns of Social Organization in an East Midlands Village 1252–1457 (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1972). For a dissenting view, see Zvi Razi, “Family,
Land and the Village Community in Later Medieval England,” Past and Present 93
(1981): 3–36; Christopher Dyer, “The English Medieval Village Community and
Its Decline,” Journal of British Studies 33 (1994): 407–29.
55
Robert C. Palmer, English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348–1381: A
Transformation of Governance and Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1993).
252 chapter six

of Labourers was a royal attempt to enforce obligations and recre-

ate the static and hierarchical social structure of the pre-plague era.
A qualitative difference existed in the way justices enforced the law
after this period. Not only were the English people required to fulfil
their feudal obligations, the courts imposed a new understanding of
personal liability to compel Englishmen “to perform to an accept-
able standard.”56 The growth of civil liability, then, was a national
response to social misbehaviour.
While McIntosh sees widespread internal revision of morality
restricted to the local courts, Palmer traces the same kind of changes
at a national level. Palmer’s focus on the importance of the rise of
trespass illustrates the link between this phenomenon and mounting
anxiety about social misbehaviour. By the year 1370, the king’s courts
chose to recognise the intrinsic value of trespass suits for the reso-
lution of local civil disputes. They consciously abandoned constric-
tive traditional rules requiring wrongs to have been committed with
force and arms, and against the king’s peace. In permitting a looser
definition of the term, the royal courts simultaneously gave birth to
case law. While trespasses were direct injuries against a person or
his land and goods, cases were consequential harms. English courts
might now hold liable a man who failed to reinforce the river walls,
even though it was his responsibility to do so, for the damages caused
to his neighbours by the flooding. This was a substantial deviation
from traditional legal objective. Before this, the concept of liability
was foreign to secular civil litigation. Even in criminal suits, the
courts were uncomfortable with this concept, so that in a case of
homicide, if John stabbed William when he had really intended to
stab Robert, the courts were hesitant to hold him responsible for his
actions.57
In the midst of this process, the central royal courts also became
involved in the regulation of a broader number of socially deviant
behaviours, joining local efforts to impose a joint code of ethics on
non-conformists. Whether we describe this as a “crisis of order” or
simply a growing trend towards an intolerance of social deviation,
it is important to recognise that these expectations reflect a long

56
Palmer, 295.
57
Naomi Hurnard refers to this kind of death as “killing by transferred intent.”
See Naomi D. Hurnard, The King’s Pardon for Homicide Before A.D. 1307 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1969), 98–101.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 253

process of development and maturation, beginning perhaps as far

back as the thirteenth century. Scolding, gossiping, gambling, eaves-
dropping, disturbing the peace: all of these offences intruded on
growing notions of personal privacy, Christian morality and public
order. Scolding was doubly offensive: not only did these women
transgress the social hierarchy by offending their moral superiors;
they also transgressed the gender hierarchy, ignoring expectations
that good Christian women are silent women.
This development in English law and culture did not take place
in a social vacuum. The confluence of plague and war in the four-
teenth-century evoked a “sentiment of menace to respectable soci-
ety” that “informed government attitudes” across Europe.58 One
visible distinction, however, is that while all of Europe participated
in the campaign against prostitution, gambling, blasphemy, sexual
deviancy, and criminal association, England was one of the few to
focus time and effort on the prosecution of aggressive women.
The intolerance of the late medieval period for social misbehav-
iour, but particularly for disobedient or overly vocal women almost
certainly had an effect on marriage. It is notable that those cases of
marital disharmony appearing in the manorial and borough courts
discussed in Chapter Two all belong to the fourteenth century. Violent
spouses who had been unofficially reprimanded prior to the four-
teenth century suddenly found themselves presented and fined by
manorial and borough courts as the century wore on and new ideas
concerning personal liability emerged. The use of literature, art and
song to shame women into embracing appropriate conduct meant
that any man whose wife did not obey the rules shared her disgrace.
How could such an important change in attitudes about the behav-
iour of women not have had an affect on marriage and domestic
violence?

58
Trevor Dean, Crime in Medieval Europe 1200–1500 (New York: Longman, 2001),
52.
254 chapter six

Putting it all Together: Personal Liability, Scolding and Marriage

The records for both York and Essex suggest that married woman
played a visible role in verbal offences of social misbehaviour. In
York, just over one third of the women accused of either scolding
or defaming (or both) in the records of the court of the Dean and
Chapter were recognisably married.59 This figure is quite similar to
the proportion of married scolds in Colchester. Of the seventy-eight
individuals involved in scold prosecution in the Colchester court, at
least twenty-six are identifiably married, representing exactly one-
third of the total number of offenders. Chaucer’s suggestion, then,
that poor governance may have been one explanation for the grow-
ing numbers of medieval scolds finds some justification in the figures
for these two counties.
It is hard to imagine that the ubiquity of scold prosecution did
not have significant ramifications on social understandings of domes-
tic violence. In a society where women who refused to be quiet and
submissive were subject to punishment by the courts, it is only fitting
that they should have shouldered some of the responsibility for their
husbands’ abuse. One way of interpreting these findings is to argue
that abuse was not simply a male transgression of gender bound-
aries, but also a female appropriation of male power. Because the
unhappy wife chooses to take an active, assertive stance, she shifts
the gender balance in the relationship. Her identifiably masculine
conduct compels her husband to adopt ultra-masculine characteris-
tics. Her aggression, then, excuses his violence.
Both Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and Uxor Noe draw the conclusion
that a wife’s scolding behaviour reflected poorly on her husband. An
overly vocal wife offered a husband, encumbered with these social
expectations, the opportunity to employ physical discipline regularly
and with some enthusiasm. The records of the courts confirm that

59
By “recognisably married” I mean women who were identified specifically as
being the wife of a named man, for example Joan wife of Henry Thorp. It seems
highly likely that a number of other women were also married but were recorded
in the court books under their own names without any reference to their husbands.
There were only two identifiable cases of women who were (almost certainly) not
married because they were distinguished in the records as being servants. The final
figure for married women may actually be even higher than is suggested by a sim-
ple name analysis; however, without further investigation into local wills and other
civic records it is difficult to offer a more precise total.
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 255

a scolding wife was judged to be a heavy burden for any man. If

scolding was a recognised cause of marital violence, and an accept-
able excuse for a husband’s violent behaviour, then it seems likely
that an increased aversion to and prosecution of verbally aggressive
women was accompanied by a greater tolerance of domestic vio-
lence. Regional differences may also reflect this development. In the
south, the local courts of Essex indicate persistence in prosecuting
women for verbal aggression. At the same time, the surviving eccle-
siastical records note very few cases of spousal abuse. Domestic vio-
lence is largely absent from the records of the diocese of Canterbury’s
disciplinary courts. Examples of domestic violence from Essex included
in the records for the diocese of London are still quite meagre where
cases of spousal violence are concerned. The Canterbury act books
present a smattering of cases. For the most part, in cases with a
direct impact on marriage, the records restrict themselves almost
exclusively to adultery or spousal non-cohabitation. Canterbury’s
cause papers also suggest that women from Kent and Essex were
unlikely to apply for a judicial separation. This is not the case for
the ecclesiastical courts of the north. The church courts here were
accustomed to dealing with cases of abuse in both an adjudicative
and disciplinary capacity. In a York consistory court book for the
year 1417 to 1420, at least three cases of marriage litigation appear
in which the plea was recognisably a suit for judicial separation on
the grounds of cruelty.60 Given that there are only six cases of this
type in the York cause papers for the entirety of the later Middle
Ages, three cases over a four-year period is a relatively high num-
ber. Divorce a mensa et thoro cases, while not specifically evocative of
female aggression, do at least demonstrate women willing to assert
their individual rights in search of personal happiness, a feature that
may have conflicted with growing notions of female propriety. If
Essex courts sometimes interpreted scolding as a woman’s attempt
to berate her husband, few women might initiate litigation against
their husbands. Both medieval families and the courts might per-
ceive suits of this kind as evidence of their own quarrelsome and
wholly unfeminine natures. What might begin as a suit against a
woman’s husband for his inability to conduct himself in a manner
befitting his role as the patriarch might end in a fine against the

60
York Cons AB/1: Selby c. Cawood, fos. 63, 126, 127; Wod c. Wod, fo. 82;
and Foxholes c. Littester, fos. 99 and 109.
256 chapter six

plaintiff for her own lack of passivity. The willingness of Yorkshire

wives to engage in suits for judicial separations indicates that they
experienced less antagonism. Quite simply, the late medieval north
was more sympathetic to female voices. Finally, if Essex wives expected
to be presented for vocally disobeying their husbands, they might
have been more inclined to obey them. This may explain the dis-
parity in cases of spousal homicide. Women from Essex were far less
likely to resort to murder as an escape from a violent marriage than
were Yorkshire wives. While tentative, these differences between the
records of the north and south where scolding and domestic vio-
lence are concerned, suggest that a revaluation of women’s place
across late medieval England is in order.
We need also to reconsider the treason statute of 1352 that redefined
the crime to include petty treason. The reinterpretation of the offence
responded to a variety of external pressures, of which the social con-
trol of misbehaviour may have been a guiding force. Scolding pros-
ecutions invite the conclusion that local elites considered deviance
from the communal norm a fundamental cause of social disorder.
In this social and political climate, it is hard to imagine a more vir-
ulent disruption of social order than a wife’s murder of her husband.
How better to punish the ultimate violation of social norms than a
public burning of the offender?

Conclusion

The figure of the scold was omnipresent in the late medieval period.
In literature, works like Chaucer’s Wife of Bath suggest an explicit
connection between poor governance and scolding: a husband’s fail-
ure to live up to social expectations might well lead to the creation
of an unbridled scold. In this case, the message seems clear: hus-
bands must govern their wives with a firm hand. Chaucer’s writing
implies that wives expected a little violence from their husbands, and
might even have enjoyed being dominated. The courts of medieval
England reflected this growing concern in the fourteenth-century. In
both the north and south of England, courts presented and punished
scolds regularly for their anti-social behaviour. While regional differences
do exist, with some indication that the north may have been more
lenient towards scolding women, it is clear that the fourteenth cen-
tury was a formative period in the history of gender relations. Anxiety
 scolds, personal liability, and marital violence 257

over social misbehaviours in general created an aura of intolerance.

Passivity was not simply expected and encouraged in women; local-
ities construed signs of active choice or the deliberate expression of
individual thought conflicting with contemporary perceptions as sym-
bols of a failure to internalise the ideal. In turn, male activity and
dominance was becoming an intrinsic quality of orderly life. It should
come as no surprise that these very same courts held husbands
responsible for the illicit actions of their wives.61 A wife ruled well
by her husband, would not have found herself drawn to any wrong-
ful activity. It seems clear that none of this was an immediate or
even rigorous change in social regulation. On the contrary, it was
an unhurried imposition of elite values with regional variation in
both type and degree. It was not until the early modern era that
this transformation culminated in a rigid and effective social control.
It was, however, a widespread affair in the later Middle Ages, enforced
primarily in local jurisdictions, but also at a more national level in
the growth of the concept of personal liability in trespass litigation.
It is difficult to imagine that these changes did not have an impact
on rates of domestic violence. The records of the church court make
it clear that men regularly argued marriage to a scold as a defence
for their violent behaviour. If late medieval England was less will-
ing to tolerate scolds, then they may have been willing to eliminate
the problem by tolerating higher levels of domestic violence.

61
See earlier discussion Chapter Five.
 CONCLUSION

When in the late fourteenth century the officials of the consistory

court of York ordered Richard Machonne to return home and treat
his wife “decently and honourably,” they were appealing to Richard’s
sense of identity as a man in late medieval Yorkshire.1 Spousal abuse
in the context of English communities in the late Middle Ages was
as much about male honour as it was about wives as victims. An
honourable man was one who demonstrated an ability to control his
household, but without exceeding the boundaries of that power. In
short, a good husband chastised his wife (or hoped that he would
not need to); a poor husband beat her. The line between the two,
however, was often blurred and subject to personal interpretation.
Thus, when a 1349 record reports Richard Scot as having declared
before the official of the archdeacon of Northumberland that it was
“his right to beat his wife,” he may have sincerely believed this to
be the case.2 Families and friends in medieval communities who wit-
nessed this abuse were nevertheless unforgiving in their judgements.
Machonne’s conduct was indecent and dishonourable. Similarly, in
the very early sixteenth century when George Softley of the vill of
Latton (Essex) beat his wife Alice so greatly that “she was thereby
in peril of her life,” the record describes his behaviour as “shame-
ful” and “unmanly.”3 Cecilia Wyvell’s deponents in 1410 were even
more relentless. Henry’s abuse of Cecilia earned him the reputation
of being both “lunatic” and “demented.”4 Wife beating was not only
proof of a person’s deficiency as a man, but as a human being. It
should come as no surprise then, that one fifteenth-century man from
London was willing to risk the costs of litigation in order to defend
his reputation against rumours of marital ill conduct.5 In a world in

1
York M 2(1) c, fo. 23.
2
York CP. E 221 / 2.
3
TNA C1/162/46, Alice wife of George Softley of Latton previously wife of
Thomas Westwode of Latton, and Richard son of the said Thomas and Alice c.
George Softley of Latton (c. 1504–9).
4
York CP. F 56 / 7, Cecilia Wyvell c. Henry Venables (1410).
5
L.R. Poos, “Sex, Lies, and the Church Courts,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History
25 (1995): 598.
 conclusion 259

which being a man was so closely tied to being a good husband,

reputation was invaluable.
The language of honour permeates the records of all the courts
reviewed in this investigation. Yet, physical violence was not the only
kind of wife abuse that might smear a man’s reputation. William of
Beltoft’s failure to provide his wife with the necessities of life was a
“scandal” in late thirteenth-century Yorkshire.6 Walter de la Mare’s
decision in the early fourteenth century to desert his wife and leave
her penniless for over four years not only caused “many scandals,”
but his actions were described as “inhumane.”7 Both courts and com-
munities employed an expanded definition of abuse, which may have
even included marital rape. Archbishop John Le Romeyn’s outrage
at Sir Nicholas de Meynell’s refusal to support his wife, a decision
that endangered her soul, reflects the same kinds of concerns that
caused a mid-fourteenth-century Yorkshire jury to remark how Stephen
Souter drove his wife Alice to suicide with his harsh words.8 Late
medieval Englishmen and women recognised the many faces of abuse:
physical, spiritual, economic, psychological, perhaps even verbal,
although the latter was the most problematic of the five. Medieval
society rarely considered verbal abuse to be a male trait. The readi-
ness of men like Henry Venables, Thomas Nesfeld and Simon
Monkton to defend their violent actions with tales of wifely shrewish-
ness demonstrates just how complex were gender relations within
marriage in the late medieval period.9 Beating a wife was not accept-
able; taming a shrew was.
The discourse of marriage placed husbands in late medieval England
in a precarious position. Wives, too, found themselves challenged by
this imposing discourse. When faced with an overbearing, abusive
husband, assertiveness or aggression was simply not an acceptable
option. A woman who crossed over the gender barrier and exhib-
ited these masculine characteristics soon found herself labelled a scold,
or worse, a petty traitor. The discourse of abuse inevitably victimised
women: self-defence led to social alienation, passivity might well lead
to death. The redeeming feature was that the vulnerability of women

6
William Brown, ed., The Register of John Le Romeyn, Lord Archbishop of York,
1286–1296 (2 parts, Surtees Society, v. 123, 1913), 1. nos. 718, 250.
7
Rose Graham, ed., Registrum Roberti Winchelsey Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, 1294–1313
(Canterbury and York Series, v. 51, 1952), 194–5.
8
Brown, 1. nos. 96, 76–77; TNA JUST 2/212, m. 19.
9
All three cases are discussed at length in Chapter Four.
260 conclusion

in this respect was recognised and addressed within late medieval

communities. England’s various courts of redress provide ample evi-
dence to support an established process for dealing with marital vio-
lence. Victims of abuse had a variety of options available to them
before even contemplating legal action. First and foremost, family
members, friends and neighbours all expected to play an active role
in the supervision of spousal violence, and did not hesitate to step
in when required to remind an overly aggressive husband of his
responsibilities towards his wife. This process was probably even more
complex than the surviving records suggest. It is reasonable to sup-
pose that confraternities or guilds might also have provided a logi-
cal support network for the wives of guild members.10 In this respect,
public humiliation proved to be the most effective means of curb-
ing violent tendencies. The dramatisation of abuse in local theatre,
like the Flood plays, and the homiletic exempla taught village audi-
ences through mockery and laughter that a world without established
gender roles was a world of chaos.
Those few husbands who failed to internalise this pivotal message
and persisted in their violent behaviour eventually found themselves
in court faced with representatives from those same communities
judging their ill conduct. Once again, victims of abuse discovered
many options available to them in terms of legal venues. While the
church courts of late medieval England were responsible for address-
ing serious cases of marital violence, manorial or borough courts
offered an alternative for dispute settlement. It is likely that some
victims of abuse found themselves in a number of venues at one
point or another during a rocky marriage. Medieval litigants under-
stood the various strains of the English legal system as a whole.
Secular, ecclesiastical, or local, medieval Englishmen and women
simply turned to whichever court they believed might offer the best
possible resolution to a problem.
Both communities and the church alike in medieval England also
recognised that an abusive marriage might not be salvageable. If the
abuse was life threatening and a wife had exhausted all other means
of settlement, representatives of the church were willing to grant a
divorce from table and bed. Nevertheless, such a resolution far

10
On the importance of guilds as a support network, see Gervase Rosser, “Going
to the Fraternity Feast: Commensality and Social Relations in Late Medieval
England,” Journal of British Studies 33 (1994): 430–46.
 conclusion 261

exceeded the financial resources of the vast majority of medieval

Englishmen and women. Instead, communities throughout England
tolerated widely self-divorce and even consensual abduction as unavoid-
able, without which spousal homicide rates would surely have been
considerably greater. Herein lies the difficulty. While communities
sanctioned informal separation, the English church stood firm behind
the opposite position. A gap thus existed between ecclesiastical and
lay beliefs where spousal abuse was concerned. Representatives of
the church were reluctant to give up on any marriage, and chose
rather to send in their own militia. Parish priests were the first line
of defence, expected to intervene in marriages that evinced signs of
abuse. The death of Odo the chaplain of Wilberfoss at the hands
of an angry husband, however, is an indication that this kind of
intrusion may not have been embraced by all members of late
medieval communities.11 Hostility to ecclesiastical interference in mar-
riage is evident in the failure of many couples to abide by the laws
of the church. Despite repeated admonishments, marriages contin-
ued to be created and terminated without the assistance (or approval)
of church officials. Moreover, couples who did turn to the church
for ecclesiastical divorce only did so when informal separation failed,
meaning either one party to the marriage refused to separate, or
they suddenly found themselves in the bishop’s court on charges of
spousal non-cohabitation.
Lay communities and ecclesiastical representatives not only differed
in perspective where separation was concerned: both understood
abuse in different lights. The fact that plaintiffs and their deponents
in cases of divorce a mensa et thoro felt the need to embellish their
tales of domestic violence, sometimes borrowing freely from saints’
lives in order to meet the church’s stringent requirements for abuse,
confirms the disparity between lay and sacred understandings of the
kind of violence that necessitated separation. While the medieval
English church and laity both tolerated substantially higher levels of
abuse than today, the expectations of the church were out of step
with contemporary values. What the laity considered abusive did not
necessarily warrant an ecclesiastical separation. The inability of both
the royal and ecclesiastical courts of the late medieval period to pro-
vide suitable remedies for victims of coerced marriage demonstrates

11
TNA JUST 1/1053, m. 9d.
262 conclusion

that the discontinuity between local and legal perceptions of abuse

was notable.
The laity of medieval England, however, may have been equally
divided in their approach to domestic violence. While female depo-
nents in cases of violence dwelt on the overwhelmingly physical
nature of the abuse, economic deprivation, adultery and spiritual
endangerment troubled male deponents and court justices. This bifur-
cated vision had important ramifications for the treatment of spousal
abuse at law. Because men alone acted as the public representatives
in court, victims of abuse were rarely able to find a sympathetic ear
when physical violence was the only charge. Moreover, the laity was
also divided in their reactions according to rank. The general medieval
laity exercised their own sense of justice that differed from that upheld
by medieval England’s lawmakers. Not only did they condone the
killing of a wife’s lover, but they may have often permitted known
wife-killers and some petty traitors to elude execution.
Joy Wiltenberg has argued that the early modern era usually
described marital discord in terms of female resistance to male author-
ity.12 This perspective holds true for the medieval period as well.
The fact that the church and laity alike regularly put forward female
disobedience as an excuse for male violent behaviour supports this
argument. Yet, in the late medieval period in England, the condi-
tions were very complex. Abuse, in many ways, was not just about
women. The outrage and loathing expressed by deponents, juries
and court officials about men who overstepped their authority reveals
that they held men of this nature responsible for much of the vio-
lence found in late medieval homes. However, men who failed to
live up to contemporary expectations and adopted instead a passive
role in their marriages were equally reprehensible. The underlying
message in cases of female misbehaviour in a variety of the records
from both Yorkshire and Essex is surely that these women were dis-
orderly because they were ill ruled, with the blame for their con-
duct placed squarely on the shoulders of their ineffectual spouses.
Wives may have provoked their husbands’ wrath through shrewish-
ness and scolding, but if their husbands had exercised proper con-
trol from the very beginning, there would have been no problem at
all. For this reason, manorial and borough courts in particular were

12
Joy Wiltenburg, Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early
Modern England and Germany (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992), 97.
 conclusion 263

willing to hold husbands legally responsible for their wives’ scolding

and even assaults. It is precisely this desire to uphold the hierarchy
within marriage, however, that created difficulties in defining abuse.
Violence in marriage was only sometimes abuse; more often than
not, it was chastisement.
Ideals about appropriate gender roles in marriage and spousal
abuse did not necessarily undergo profound transformation over the
course of the late medieval period; what did change is how they
were enforced. The fourteenth century seems to have been a cru-
cial period in the development of accountability for social misbe-
haviour. Increased mobility after the Black Death dealt a blow to
traditional systems of behavioural supervision. Families and neigh-
bours were no longer capable of exercising the kind of unofficial
power they had in the past, and were compelled instead to adapt
the legal system to meet the needs of a changing society. Although
families and neighbours continued to play an important role as infor-
mal arbitrators in incidents of marital disharmony, communities trans-
formed the English judicial system to supplement traditional methods.
Byelaws against disruption of the peace and scolding are two exam-
ples of local resolutions intended to check levels of domestic vio-
lence; at the national level, changes to the laws of trespass and
treason reflect this widespread anxiety. The overall effect on levels
of marital violence is difficult to discern; and yet it seems clear that
a public awareness of social misbehaviour gave birth to a sense of
crisis that may have justified a heightened degree of spousal abuse.
The north and south in England responded differently to the
changes wrought by the arrival of the plague in Europe. In the
south, the Black Death served merely to intensify an ongoing battle
against social misbehaviour. By the mid-fourteenth century, rural
mobility had been an integral feature of Essex life for such a long
period that boroughs like Colchester had already begun to use the
local courts to punish persons who refused to conform to contem-
porary standards of acceptable behaviour. Growing anxiety about
social misconduct in the post-plague period is most apparent in the
records of the church courts. In Canterbury, diocese defamation suits
increased exponentially from a paltry 14 suits during the years 1372–5
to 324 in the six-year period between 1474 and 1479.13 In the south,

13
Canterbury Y.1.1 (1372–5); Y.1.12 (1474–9).
264 conclusion

the church courts worked together with the local judicial system to
stamp out social non-conformity. The growing number of prosecu-
tions, then, points less to increased misbehaviour than it does to a
heightened awareness of the problem and a greater determination
to eliminate it.
Yorkshire, on the other hand, seems to have been much slower
to react to changing perceptions of how collective values should be
enforced, perhaps reflecting its distance from England’s legal centre.
Although Marjorie McIntosh has pinpointed the 1370s as the cru-
cial period when localities across England decided finally to take
legal action against social misbehaviour, the local courts of Yorkshire
in particular chose instead to address their concerns through tradi-
tional means. Prosecution of antisocial behaviour under the guise of
spiritual transgressions multiplied in the northern ecclesiastical courts,
while the manorial courts of Yorkshire addressed only the occasional
and most egregious cases of social non-conformity. With only 74
suits of verbal offences over the period 1387 to 1494, the courts of
York never exhibited the same kind of anxiety, as did their south-
ern counterparts.14
It is possible that the disparity between the two regions had an
effect on the prosecution of spousal abuse as well as general atti-
tudes towards it. In the south, a wife’s assertiveness in an unhappy
marriage may have resulted in a presentment before the local courts
for scolding and a heavy fine. In York, that same wife might instead
take her case before the archbishop’s court with every expectation
that her friends and family would support her application for sepa-
ration on the grounds of cruelty. The preoccupation with scolding
wives and petty traitors in sixteenth-century England, however, affords
proof that, in the end, the south’s tendency to oppress domestic vio-
lence through the rigid enforcement of socially approved gender roles
became the more popular of the two approaches.
The two regions, however, shared many similarities with respect
to domestic violence. Most important was an eagerness to impose
the death penalty on petty traitors. While the juries of Yorkshire
and Essex sentenced 34 percent of petty traitors to burn or hang,
only 20 percent of wife-killers received the same treatment. The
higher execution rate for women accused of spousal homicide confirms

14
York D & C AB/1.
 conclusion 265

that husbands might transgress the bonds of marriage more easily

than might wives.
Collectively, the court records of both the north and the south
present a grim and gruesome image of late medieval society. This
representation is an inevitable consequence of the choice of court
records as evidence of daily life. By nature, court records reveal the
dark side of the medieval era. In reality, while some medieval English-
men abused their wives, spousal abuse was not a universally accepted
practice. If indirectly, the law courts of medieval England demon-
strate that English villages had an effective system of dealing with
marital strife. Both unofficially and legally, medieval England pun-
ished domestic violence through public humiliation. In the village
setting, families and neighbours mocked abusive couples through the-
atre, parish teachings and gossip circles; legally, presentment itself
was an extremely embarrassing process that acted as a public dec-
laration of one’s moral failings. Even the penalties imposed by the
secular and ecclesiastical courts were of a public nature: processions,
cucking and carting before a crowd of familiar faces would have
been a humbling experience for even the proudest individual. This
kind of communal pressure to reform must have been difficult to
resist. Furthermore, medieval England’s extensive multi-layered sys-
tem of familial, communal and legal intervention in cases of mari-
tal disharmony may have prevented many marriages from reaching
the point where homicide seemed like the best solution to the prob-
lem. Medieval England’s methods of dealing with marital violence
might appear to have been underhanded, circuitous, and random as
well as somewhat oppressive; however, social expectations that fam-
ilies (and communities) should govern themselves at the very least
make someone responsible for addressing instances of spousal abuse.
If the courts and their agents had been solely responsible for inves-
tigating violence in marriage, as is usually the case today, one can-
not help but wonder how much worse this situation might have been
for medieval women.
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 INDEX
abandonment, spousal 30–31, 108–09,
120, 126n, 151
accidental death 22, 45–47, 189, 194,
205, 215
accomplices (see also spousal homicide)
5, 14n, 16, 22, 31, 27, 70, 86,
88–92, 94, 96–7, 186, 192, 194,
196, 201–2, 205, 208, 209, 212,
213, 216–20, 223–4, 256, 261, 264
acquittal rates 91
adultery 8, 10, 14, 17, 25n, 27–8,
72–74, 79, 80, 96, 98–103, 105,
107, 111, 120, 124, 127–8, 130–1,
134n, 135, 139–43, 153–4, 159,
169–70, 180, 200, 249, 255, 262
afforcement, phrases of 208–14,
216–17, 222
alcohol abuse 40
alimony (see maintenance)
Alison of Bath 27, 37n, 228, 230–36,
254, 256
amercements 250
annulment (see divorce a vinculo)
arbitration 200
archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop Winchelsey 78, 109, 121
archbishop of York 11, 12n, 17, 18,
79, 80, 108–11, 151, 204, 259n
Archbishop Greenfield 80, 111
Archbishop Le Romeyn 108–9,
11–12n, 113, 127–8n, 259
Archbishop Newark 128
Archbishop Thomas of Corbridge
110, 111n
Archbishop Thomas of Rotherham 18
archdeacon of Canterbury 3
archdeacon of Northumberland
137–8, 140, 258
assault 11, 13, 25, 31–2, 48n, 83–4,
88n, 95–6, 103, 145, 150–1, 180–1,
195n, 238, 263
Augustine, Saint 49–50
Bagley, Ayers 57, 67
ballads and poems 10, 22, 54, 56,
98, 145
“A Henpecked Husband’s
Complaint, I” 56
“A Henpecked Husband’s
Complaint, II” 98n
“An Old Man and his Wife” 54
banns 18–20
Bellamy, John G. 87–8, 208, 210,
212–13
Benson c. Benson (Agnes and Peter
Benson) 122, 158, 159, 160, 167,
171, 174, 176
biases of the records 20
Black Death 8, 9n, 26, 124n, 240n,
247n, 424, 248, 251, 263
Book of the Knight of Tour Landry,
The 51, 106n, 226
(see also exempla)
Boose, Lynda 228, 250
borough courts 13, 81–2, 86, 229,
237–8, 243, 250, 253, 260, 262
Bradford, manor of 32, 82n
brothers, role in regulating marriage
ch. 5, passim
Brundage, James 19, 20n, 36–7n, 69,
75n, 99, 101n, 108n, 127n, 128n, 131n,
132, 138, 147n, 180n, 185n, 202n
Bryan, Lindsay 181
Cade’s Rebellion 240
Calendar of Patent Rolls 14n, 115
canon law 3, 11n, 19, 20, 36n, 68,
75n, 101n, 108, 121n, 127, 128n,
131, 138n, 185n
canonical requirements for proof 148
case law, birth of 8, 252
cautio 77–78
Cérisy la Forêt, officiality of 121
Chalgrave, manor of 42
Chancery, bills 77, 166n, 187, 188,
194n, 197, 204, 219
chaste marriage 101
chastisement, as a defense 32, 40–1,
45–7, 63, 77–8, 95, 118, 142, 144,
150, 173–4, 183, 230, 253
role in education 26, 28, 148, 153,
175
282
Chaucer, Geoffrey 27, 37n, 52–3, 61n,
63n, 117, 220n, 230–5, 254, 256
the Merchant’s Tale 233
Patient Griselda 52
the Wife of Bath 27, 37n, 228,
230–6, 254, 256
church courts 7, 11–2, 19–20, 26,
71–81, 120–9
as cause of tension 120–9
ex officio jurisdiction 14, 99, 120–5,
140, 153n, 181
instance jurisdiction ch. 4 passim
role in regulating marriage 76,
80–1, 83–4, 96
clandestine unions 69, 123
clean-hands rule 101n, 138, 153
clergy 11, 32, 39, 58, 68, 111, 128,
201–4
and masculinity 39, 203
Colchester, borough of 13, 31–2, 43,
82n, 83, 194, 239–43, 245
commission of oyer and terminer 7n,
155
concealment, of corpse 86, 214
confessors’ manuals 34–5, 49n
conjugal debt 101, 109, 126, 128
restitution of conjugal rights 25,
126, 156
coroner 5n, 15–17, 86, 88, 94–5,
221, 222
coroner’s rolls 5n, 15–17, 45–7,
88, 95, 104, 115–16, 192, 199,
205, 212, 214–17, 225
inquest jury 15, 16, 45, 103, 186,
189, 194, 207–8, 210n, 211,
215–16, 221
Council of Toledo 36
court expenses 71, 166
coverture 25, 30–1, 42–3, 82
cruelty 14, 19, 26, 40–1, 71, 75–7,
108, 112, 117–19, 131–3, 135,
137–8, 140–1, 144–5, 151–4,
158–61, 163, 165, 167, 170, 179,
181, 204, 231, 255, 264
cucking stool 231, 237, 243, 250
Cullum, P.H. 39–40
D’Avray, D.L. 35n, 40n, 51–2
dean and chapter of York 53, 74,
100, 199, 200, 244
defamation 10, 12, 19n, 100, 102,
135, 180–1, 203n, 245–6, 263
Devoine c. Scot (Margery de Devoine
and Richard Scot) 101, 122, 134n,
index
136, 139, 141, 142, 149, 153, 167,
171–2, 176–7
disobedience of wives 59–64, 99,
116–20, 227–9
divorce a vinculo 156
divorce a mensa et thoro 14, 78, 101,
110n, 112n, 117, 127, 131–3,
134n, 139n, 148, 151, 153, 160,
167, 176, 181, 201, 209, 255, 261
Dolan, Frances 10, 209, 210–11n,
220
Donahue, Charles Jr. 69, 71n, 76,
121n, 124, 134n, 136n, 147n, 167n,
177n
double standard 138n, 139
Durham 181, 237n
Dyer, Christopher 8, 9n, 251n
Earls Colne 13, 82–3, 238–9
economic deprivation 99, 107, 109,
111, 114, 125, 171, 262
Elliott, Dyan 101
Étienne de Bourbon 117
Eve 35, 63, 64n, 116, 118n, 152,
228, 236
execution 46, 88, 91, 128, 181, 184,
262, 264
burning 256
hanging 16, 88, 91, 93, 212, 236n
exempla 22, 35n, 51, 54, 98, 106–7,
173, 226, 228, 260
“A Roper’s False Wife” 106–7
The Book of the Knight of Tour Landry
51, 106n, 226
“The Obedience of Wives” 226,
228
eye injuries 137, 141, 144, 161, 172,
175, 177–78
Farmer, Sharon 31, 34–5, 203n, 214
Fasciculus Morum 49
felonies 5, 11, 16, 92
abduction 5, 85, 88n, 127, 129,
155, 158, 261
homicide 5, 6, 10, 11, 14n, 15, 16,
21–2, 25, 27, 42n, 46–8, 70,
86–99, 102–7, 114, 116, 120, 43,
180–1, 186, 189, 192–7, 201–2,
205–9, 211–13, 215–220, 222–4,
252, 256
larceny 13
rape 25, 30, 88n, 127–9, 171–2,
197, 199, 204, 259
female aggression 243, 248, 255
 index
Finch, Andrew 101, 121n, 122, 123n,
125n, 126
flight, from law 46, 48, 94, 96, 100,
128, 131, 126
Fordwich, borough of 240–41
fornication 8, 125n, 72, 74, 99, 100,
128, 131, 191
Foyster, Elizabeth 28, 56n
gaol delivery records 6, 16, 196
Given, J.B. 6, 42, 90, 92, 222
Goldberg, P.J.P. 147, 165, 184n, 247
Goldesburgh, parish of 18
good governance 8n, 65, 98, 212n, 250
failing to chastise one’s wife 32
gossiping 231, 236–8, 244, 248
gossips, role of 229, 234–5, 237–8, 253
Gowing, Laura 10, 27–8, 135, 138n,
160, 168, 171, 182, 183n
Gratian 3, 35–7, 40–1
Green, Thomas A. 21, 75n, 104–6n,
204n, 208–9n, 213n, 215n, 249n
Guibert de Tournai 51–2
guilds 8, 60, 260
Hallissy, Margaret 52
Hanawalt, Barbara A. 1n, 4–7, 8–9n,
27, 59, 83n, 92n, 184n, 186, 187n,
211, 212–13n, 251n
heavy-handed marriage counselor 19,
149
Helmholz, Richard 3, 6, 7, 8–9n,
11n, 12, 19, 30, 68n, 69, 73, 81n,
102n, 126n, 137n, 140n, 149n, 154n,
167n, 180n, 190
Hereford 121, 122–3n
honour 105n, 147, 243
and masculinity 181
Hostiensis 75
hot blood 218
hue-raising 82–83
Hurnard, Naomi 46, 93, 114n, 219n,
252n
husband-beatings 59
impediments to marriage 68
affinity 19, 68
bigamy 25, 68, 120, 142–3
consanguinity 19, 68
crime, of 86–7
sponsorship 19, 68
Ingram, Martin 55, 123, 237
insanity 91n, 99, 114–16, 219n
non compos mentis 115–16, 205
283
intrafamilial assault 95
Ireby c. Lonesdale ( Joan Ireby and
Robert Lonesdale) 161–4, 167,
171, 177, 182
Januensis 37–8, 227, 234
Jewell, Helen 246
Johannes Teutonicus 36
Jones, Karen and Michael Zell 240
judicial separation (see divorce a mensa
et thoro)
jurisdictions 11, 101n, 121, 123n, 257
juries 6n, 21, 23, 45, 47, 86–7,
89–92, 95, 97–8, 103–6, 114, 137,
168, 174, 178, 186, 208, 210–16,
222, 249–50, 252, 262, 264
jury communication 208–16
overlap in jury personnel 208
status of jurors 214–15
Kaeuper, Richard 5n, 7, 36, 75n, 131n
Karras, Ruth Mazo 35n, 39, 51, 94n,
116, 117n, 139n, 172n
Kent 15, 24–5, 70, 122, 240, 255
king’s courts, role of 11, 30n, 84,
86–7, 95, 98, 148, 158, 252
Kiralfy, Albert 88
language
of abuse 41, 137
of discipline 47
of honor 259
legal fiction 22, 85, 104, 112n,
177–79, 204
legal process
abjuration 94–5, 96
acquittal 70, 87, 89, 91–2, 103,
197, 211–6, 221
conviction 74n, 87, 88, 91, 97,
206, 208, 210, 211–4, 219
flight 46, 94, 96, 106n
outlawry 93, 95
pardons 46, 94, 215
peine forte et dure 91
sanctuary 9, 94–5
sine die 91
waivery 195n
legal treatises 23, 33, 43–4, 47–8, 114
Andrew Horne, Mirror of Justices
43n
Bracton, On the Laws and Customs of
England 43–5, 48, 114, 195n, 235
litigiousness of urbanites 165–7
London 2n, 6, 8n, 10, 12n, 14–5, 23,
284 index
39n, 102, 110n, 117, 118, 125, 184n,
186n, 188, 194n, 199, 239, 249,
255, 258
Lucy of Syracuse, Saint 178
Macfarlane, Alan 13n, 24, 82n, 89n
maintenance 31, 108–12, 122, 132,
163, 177
Maitland, F.W. 31n, 68, 95n
male honour 28, 41–2, 108, 136,
179–82, 188, 258
male witnesses, superiority of 147
manorial courts 13, 23–4, 70, 81–86,
229, 241, 245, 250–1, 253, 260,
262, 264
Marie de France 107
marital expectations 3–4, 10, 26,
43–4, 48, 49, 56, 98, 108, 114, 135,
181, 185, 199, 254, 256, 261–2
marital rape 127–9, 259
marital violence
acceptability of 1, 4, 36, 59, ch. 4
passim
communal regulation of 26–7, 70,
71, 86, 96, 176, ch. 5 passim
economic deprivation 31, 99,
107–14, 125, 160, 163, 171, 179,
259, 262
provocation by wife 27, 99, 117,
119, 162, 176, 228, 262
psychological abuse 144, 160–1,
179, 259
psychology of abuse 38–9
spiritual abuse 113, 259, 262
verbal abuse 160, 179, 259
weapons 77, 146, 174–5, 219, 221–2
writ 31, 95
Mate, Mavis 9n, 31n, 107, 247, 248n
McIntosh, Marjorie 7–8, 9n, 27n, 229,
240–1, 248, 249n, 250, 252, 264
McRae-Spencer, Alison 138
McSheffrey, Shannon 8, 27n, 32n, 33n,
39n, 139, 184, 186n, 189, 199, 249n
Milsom, S.F.C. 8, 22n, 85n
misericords 57–9, 66–7
Monica, Saint 50
mundus inversus 55–8, 66, 232
municipal byelaws 229, 238, 248, 250
Munkton c. Huntington (Simon
Munkton, Agnes Huntington) 101,
118, 150–8, 167, 168, 174, 175, 180
Murray, Jacqueline 44
Nazeing 14, 82, 243
Nesfeld c. Nesfeld (Margery and Thomas
Nesfeld) 118–9, 122, 144–50, 162,
167, 168, 173–6, 182, 259
Neville, Cynthia 23, 210n, 247n, 248n
Newcastle-upon-Tyne 136–7, 167,
170
Noah 55n, 60–4, 65–230
north-south relations 23, 175–6, 220,
238, 244–8, 256, 263–4
Palmer, Robert 8n, 251–2
parent abuse 3
parish priest, role of 35, 201–4, 227,
229, 261
passivity, female 24, 49–53, 75, 135,
171, 173, 257, 259
Paston family 187
Paul, Saint 229
Pedersen, Frederik 137n, 147, 150n,
156n, 165n, 185n
Peregrinus 38–41, 108, 234
personal liability 7
personal privacy 8, 126n
petty treason (see treason)
Phillips, Roderick 216–18
poisoning 12n, 111, 202–3, 210, 220–2
Pontefract 13, 53, 82n, 243, 244
Poos, L.R. 9n, 100n, 124n, 181, 240n,
242n, 258n
Pope Alexander III 133
Pope Innocent III 131
potestas 44
Power, Eileen 1
preaching (see also sermons) 34, 37,
44, 69, 107
premeditation 213
proctors, role of 135–6, 140, 142,
160, 166
prostitution 72, 99, 114, 125
Punch and Judy plays 61–64
Purkiss, Diane 20
Purvis, J.S. 17n, 20, 25n, 100
rates of violence 6, 7n, 22, 24, 83, 89
Raymond of Peniafort 131
reasonable force 33
reconciliation, marital 20, 79, 73,
75–6, 80, 84, 99, 117, 120, 121,
123, 124, 127, 129–30
regional variation (see north-south relations)
registers of archbishops 14, 78–81
 index
Romeo and Juliet 157
Rosser, Gervase 9, 94, 95n, 260n
scolds, general 63, 259
as justification for divorce 27, 59,
73, 117–18, 176, 262–3
prosecution of 8, 24, 26, 63, ch. 6
passim, 263–4
Scots 23, 210n, 246–7
self-defence 21, 48, 88n, 103–5,
172–3, 181
self-divorce 69, 121, 123, 132, 137n,
259, 261
self-help 197–8
sequestration 153n, 204
sermons (see also preaching) 22, 33, 35,
37n, 38, 41–2, 44, 49n, 51, 54,
106n, 107–8, 117n, 226–7, 231, 234
servants, role of 37, 47, 77, 87, 89n,
148, 165, 195, 199, 254n
Sharpe, J.A. 197
Sheehan, Michael 34n, 184, 186n
Sheffield 13, 82n
shotgun weddings 189–92
slaying of wife’s lover 22, 98, 102–6,
262
social misbehaviour 7–8, 26, 43,
228–30, 237–8, 242, 244, 248,
252–4, 256–7, 262–4
spinning 63
spousal homicide 5, 6, 16, 22, 46–8,
70, 86–99, 102–7, 114, 116, 120,
143, 183, 186, 192–7, 201–8,
212–24, 256, 261, 264, 265
rumour of 12–13
spousal non-cohabitation 25, 73, 75,
117, 120–9, 131, 177, 255, 261
spousal selection 68, 184, 186n
Statutes
Labourers, of 1348 251
Treason 1352 87, 247, 256
Wesminster, of II (1285) 180
stocks and pillory 250
Stone, Lawrence 1, 9, 28, 220n
Storm, Melvin 230
Stratford-upon-Avon 66–7
Stretton, Tim 20, 21n, 22, 138n
suicide 88n, 116, 142–3, 160, 170,
205, 259
Summa Parisiensis 36
Swanson, R.N. 203–4
285
Tancred 147
Thomas Chobham 21, 33–8, 40–44,
49, 133, 227, 232, 234–5
Thorner 13, 82n, 236, 237n, 243–4
Tickhill Honour 13, 82n, 217, 243
tithing groups 185
Tosh, John and Michael Roper 4
treason
high treason 23, 88, 114, 247
in the north of England 23, 210
petty treason 86–8, 172, 195,
202–4, 209–13, 216–24, 256
punishments 87–8
statute, 1352 87, 247, 256, 263
trespass 32, 65, 104–5, 204, 252,
257, 263
trespass law, birth of 8, 252
trespassory ravishment of wives 85,
150, 155, 201
uxoricide 86–7, 90–91, 211–14,
217–18, 220n, 222–3
Uxor Noe 33, 60–4, 65, 228, 230–1,
254
verbal formulas 21, 152, 206, 208
Wakefield 5n, 13, 32, 82–4, 86n, 188,
243
Wakefield Flood Play 27, 61–4
Walker, Garthine 171, 237n
Walker, Sue Sheridan 30n, 85, 155n,
201
Weisl, Angela 64
Westminster Abbey’s Henry VII
Chapel 55, 67
What the Goodwife Taught Her
Daughter 50, 57
wife chastisement 32, 40, 41, 45–7,
63, 78, 95, 118, 142, 144, 150, 173,
174, 183, 230, 253, 263
Wilgefort, Saint 54–5
Wiltenberg, Joy 262
Wisbech 181
witchcraft prosecutions 20, 24, 231n
witnesses 10, 15, 27, 77, ch. 4 passim,
185
depositions 133–4, 142
gender distinctions in testimonies
169–72
gender of 145, 147–8
286 index

memories 177 rights at law (see also coverture)

strategies 136, 138–40, 142 173,
179
wives
financial support (see also maintenance)
31, 79, 108n, 109–12, 122, 163, 177
held accountable for violence 50,
59, 99, 117, 119, 142, 145, 147,
162, 176, 262
piety 34
property rights 24–25, 30–31,
161–4
30–31, 42–3, 82
Wyvell c. Venables (Cecilia Wyvell and
Henry Venables) 118, 122, 141–4,
149, 160, 169, 172–3, 174–7, 179,
182, 258, 259
York cause papers 25n, 28, 122, 133,
136, 147, 167, 181, 182, 185, 189,
198, 255
 Later Medieval Europe
Managing Editor
Douglas Biggs

ISSN: 1872-7875
Brill’s Later Medieval Europe series deals with all aspects of European history and culture from
ca. 1100 to ca. 1600 (with the majority covering the Late Medieval time period of 1100-1500).
All areas of Europe will be included; however, there will be a focus on the territories of modern-
day France, Germany and Great Britain, as well as on the Low Countries. Economic, social,
political history and the history of culture and mentality will also be given special emphasis.

1. Armstrong, L., Elbl, I. & M. M. Elbl (eds.). Money, Markets and Trade in Late Medieval Europe.
Essays in Honour of John H.A. Munro. 2007. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15633 3,
ISBN-10: 90 04 15633 X
2. Butler, S.M. The Language of Abuse. Marital Violence in Later Medieval England. 2007.
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15634 0, ISBN-10: 90 04 15634 8