Tag Archives: appeal

A pregnant pause (in legal proceedings)

This is a snippet on medieval women, pregnancy and the common law which I had not come across at the time I wrote Women in the Medieval Common Law, but which I would add, if there was ever to be a second edition (very likely, I am sure, due to massive global demand …).

This sits somewhere between  the plea of pregnancy as a way of deferring the imposition of capital punishment (which has been explored in a number of studies)[i] and the less-explored area of women’s essoins or legitimate excuses for non-appearance. It is well known that the common law did accept that a capital sentence should not be imposed upon a pregnant woman (at least one whose pregnancy had ‘quickened’), the thinking behind that mainly revolving around the wrongness of making an ‘innocent’ suffer the penalty appropriate only for the guilty. It is also well known that there were a number of ways in which a person could make excuses for not appearing for trial, without negative consequences, but, as I noted in the book (p. 110), the great medieval treatises – Bracton and Fleta in particular –  talk about these entirely from a masculine perspective.[ii] Thus we learn that a man who is sick in bed can be excused, as long as he is not caught up and about and in his trousers, but, even though there are some early indications of essoins ‘de malo puerperi’ or ‘de puerperio’,[iii]  it is relatively rare to see them ‘in the wild’, being used (and succeeding) in practice.

There is, though, an entry on the King’s Bench plea roll for Easter term 1322 which shows the use of labour/childbirth as a reason not to turn up to defend oneself in an appeal (individually-commenced  criminal prosecution). KB 27/248 m.8d (AALT IMG 0193) records the efforts of the sheriff of Essex to bring Philip Clobbe, Roger Pontyn and Alice his wife into court to respond to Clarice, widow of Hugh le Bakere of [Bartlow], who appealed them of the death of her husband. After many failed attempts, Roger  appeared, but it was said that Alice was pregnant. The vocabulary is marginally different to the terms above – she lay in parturiendo – on which more in a moment – and so could not come to court without the risk of fatal consequences.

Alice was not going to be forced to come to court at once to stand trial, but was to be ‘kept safe’ so that she could be tried later. As with the execution deferral plea of pregnancy, this was only a temporary delay, This is not the only situation in which the machinery of the law resulted in non-convicted pregnant women being kept in some degree of confinement – see also the process in ‘civil law’ cases in which a woman alleged that she was pregnant with her deceased husband’s child, and property divisions depended on whether or not there was an heir.[iv] Considerable suspicion of women and their scheming ways was shown in such cases. Here, presumably, the fear was that a heavily pregnant woman would get up from her labour and go on the run from the law.

So – a small extension from the known material (or at least the material known to me) but an interesting one, and something that, I think, confirms the picture of not-exactly-merciful attitudes to pregnant women in the medieval common law. Perhaps it also reinforces the idea of the forms of the common law, with their development through a male paradigm, which might be applied to women in a rough and ready way, did not fit childbearing and pregnancy very well, intellectually at least.

There are a couple of language issues which might be noted. First off, interestingly and/or frustratingly, the use of Latin here obscures a detail which many of us would like clarified: whose death are we talking about – mother, foetus or both? The suggestion that she can’t come sine mortis periculo  – ‘without danger of death’ could, it seems to me, mean any of the above. And it matters, doesn’t it, in that it would be very good to know whether this is an extension backwards in time of the ‘don’t hurt the innocent for the misdeeds of the mother’ or whether it is an analogue of the ‘sick men don’t have to risk their health’ plea. And then there is that slight difference between the language of puerperium and that of parturition. Would it be stretching things to see them as having slightly different focus, linguistically, emphasising the child and the woman respectively? I put it out there, anyway, as something of an indication of the acceptance of complexity, possible dissonance and changing of points of view which medieval people’s minds could accommodate. Let’s be honest, those of us of a somewhat light cast of mind quite enjoy the lack of perspective in medieval visual arts. Intellectually, though, their ability to juggle and switch perspectives is intriguing and impressive.

 

GS

31/8/2024

 

Image – Elizabeth giving birth to John the Baptist, c/o Wikimedia Commons.

 

[i] See p. 143 of the 2021 book for references.

[ii] Bracton IV, pp 71, 91-5, 113, 124, 127, 143; Fleta book 6 c 10.

[iii] Examples of this terminology from the early 13th C: 67 SS p. 342; 84 SS no 3144, 3720, 3889; CRR I, p 383.

[iv] I have a chapter about to appear, dealing with this, amongst other things, so you’ll have to wait. In the meantime, see this later example.

The other disadvantage of excommunication…

A Cambridgeshire case from the early part of the reign of Edward III shows the other disadvantage of excommunication (apart from the whole ‘no communion, going to Hell…’ side of things, that is) and also contributes to the rich and fascinating picture of women’s participation in medieval ‘criminal justice’.

The case was an appeal of robbery, brought by a woman, in which an objection was raised by the accused man, contending that he should not have to face such an accusation brought by a woman he claimed to be in a state of excommunication. It qualified for Year Book reports – it is both YB Pasch. 3 Edw III pl 33 f. 19a;  Seipp 1329.072  and also 3 Edw. III Lib. Ass. 12 f. 5b; Seipp 1329.171ass; http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/lawyearbooks/display.php?id=6228 https://www.bu.edu/phpbin/lawyearbooks/display.php?id=6327,

and I have found the plea roll entry in the King’s Bench roll for Easter term 1329: KB 27/276 Rex m.9; see also m.9d.

As is often the case, the reports are light on, or inconsistent as to, details. Putting it all together allows us to get a little nearer to what was going on.

The plea roll entry clears up the reports’ disagreements on the parties: it should be Margaret le Hornere v. Master Richard Badowe, Stephen Bedel and Thomas Bedel. It tells us that this is an appeal of robbery and breach of the king’s peace. It seems to be from Cambridgeshire rather than Kent, as the reports suggest (‘Cant.’ for Cambridgeshire could easily be misread as indicating ‘Canterbury’). Margaret had brought a trespass case against Richard, alleging that he had locked her up and taken some goods from her, and she had been faced with the argument that she could not do this, as she was an excommunicate, an official ecclesiastical letter to this effect (from John [Hotham] Bishop of Ely) appears to have been produced, and that put a stop to the action (at least until Margaret’s status should be improved.  Not to be put off, Margaret also tried the ‘criminal’ procedure available for ‘theft’ facts – the appeal of robbery – as noted. The KB record of this action gives a more detailed account of the robbery – which she said took place on a stretch of water between Barnwell and Cambridge – and a longer list of the items allegedly taken (much of it fancy  clothing). But the defence and the outcome were similar to the trespass case: Margaret could not pursue the case in her current state of lack of grace, and so the appeal could not proceed.

The case is interesting in a number of respects. In terms of jurisdiction and spiritual-temporal procedural matters, it is worth noting as an example of the effects of excommunication on ability to litigate in the secular courts. If one were able to have potential accusers excommunicated, that might be a very good way to hold them up, or even discourage them from pursuing their suit. In terms of the law on appeals, it looks as if there was some doubt about what should be done with the defendant in a case like this, once it was established that the woman bringing the appeal was excommunicate. The record shows a slightly makeshift looking series of securities being used, while Margaret was allowed time to show she had been absolved.

Things trundled on, with requests for Margaret to produce evidence of absolution, security for Richard’s appearance and several court dates, but in the end, Margaret seems to have given up, and never did manage to show that she had been readmitted as a communicant. Richard prevailed in the end. Nevertheless, Margaret did show an interesting flexibility in what action to bring, as well as clearly being rather keener to bring Richard to justice than to make sure that her soul was safe.

GS

25/1/218 (Dydd Santes Dwynwen!)