medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Shannon,
Many thanks for your reply, it's extremely helpful.
Thanks,
Rowin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Shannon McSheffrey
> Sent: 01 April 2003 19:42
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [M-R] women and morality
>
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Rowin --
>
> As I'm sure you know, there was no such thing as "medieval law" but many
> different legal regimes. The sort of thing you're talking about
> sounds like
> it would be a local response to the problem of extramarital sexuality. I'm
> assuming, giving your vernacular quotation, that you're talking about
> England or possibly Scotland: although I wouldn't say that it never
> happened, given the variety of responses to the issue in different
> jurisdictions, condemning a fornicator to death would not have been at all
> common. Judging by the number of people in a city like London charged with
> sexual offences before various authorities, both civic and ecclesiastical,
> the hangman would have been pretty busy: Richard Wunderli has statistics
> indicating that in some years in the fifteenth century between 600 and 700
> people per year were charged in one court alone (by no means the
> only court
> that heard such cases). In many jurisdictions, especially in
> ecclesiastical
> courts, the penalties for sexual misbehaviour were relatively mild (often
> payment of small fine in lieu of or in addition to penance). Local secular
> courts were somewhat more severe, but the worst penalties usually involved
> eviction from the town.
>
> Good places to look for literature would be Ruth Mazo Karras, *Common
> Women*; James Brundage, *Law, Sex, and Christian Society*; Marjorie K.
> McIntosh, *Controlling Misbehavior*. If your text is Scottish, look at
> *Women in Scotland : c.1100 - c.1750*, ed. Elizabeth Ewan and Maureen M.
> Meikle, where I think there might be an essay on prostitution.
>
> Shannon McSheffrey
> Associate Professor of History
> Concordia University
> LB-601, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
> Montreal, QC Canada H3G 1M8
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://alcor.concordia.ca/~shannon
>
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